Irish Examiner view: With free speech, you are the jury

Justice Minister Helen McEntee says her proposed legislation 'is not as radical as detractors claim'. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

None of us is in any doubt about what ‘hate’ means, said Fine Gael senator Barry Ward in the Irish Examiner, in a vigorous debunking of the worries that some people have about the proposed hate speech laws.

These are wending their way through the legislative processes of the Dáil and Seanad and seem unlikely to reach committee stage before the autumn.

At one level, there is no misunderstanding of the number of incidents, which increased by almost one third last year to 582. Cases include a young black woman being shouldered out of the way by a man. In another, a male youth was subjected to anti-gay comments and assaulted. 

Just last week a court heard how a teenage boy carried out a “rage-filled” attack on a lesbian couple after seeing them cuddling at a bus shelter.

Of discriminatory motives, one third involved race, 22% sexual orientation, and 21% nationality. The largest number of cases was in Dublin. So far, so clear. We all know hate when we see it.

But complexity is introduced with the concepts of “thought crime” and “freedom of expression”.

Chanting “Chelsea rent boys” is a crime in the UK and for doing so Wolverhampton Wanderers became the first club to be sanctioned and fined €115,000 by soccer’s governing body.

But what about that song, much favoured by followers of Glasgow Rangers and others, about the Pope and the IRA? Is placing a photo of the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and an Irish flag on a loyalist bonfire in County Tyrone worthy of investigation? What about the content of nearly all of the Armageddon World Tour by comedian Ricky Gervais in Dublin last week?

Justice Minister Helen McEntee says her proposed legislation “is not as radical as detractors claim”, which implies that critics have landed some blows.

Principal among them is Independent Senator Michael McDowell, a former attorney-general, who says the bill in its current state “isn’t in good shape” and will chill free speech.

A correspondent to this newspaper wonders: “As we have so few gardaí, the last thing they need is another toothless, unenforceable law.” 

We need a period of reflection and closer scrutiny of what is being proposed. Hopefully, the summer will allow that to take place.

Ever-increasing scams

Just one day after one of our contributors pointed to a decline in the use of cash because of the “popularity of user-friendly digital payments technology” we reported again on the other side of the coin.

Consumers are being hit with fraud scams that are “increasingly more complex and credible”, with a total of €85m stolen by criminal gangs in 2022, an increase of almost 9%.

The greatest channel for growth has been in the use of text messages, which often contain a link and a call for urgent action. The Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland says that one in two adults here has received such a fraudulent communication in the past 12 months.

Unauthorised electronic transfers are almost as lucrative a form of theft as credit card fraud but with far fewer transactions, making the average loss much higher.

The pace of deception is increasing as a recent sample of headlines indicates: “The vast majority of fraud instances begin with online advertisements; Beware fraudulent eFlow messages; Isme warns online and telephone fraud could cost small businesses €310m annually; ComReg research shows there were 365,000 scam texts and calls last year.”

When Leslie Van Houten, who participated in the Charles Manson murder cult, walked free last week after 53 years in a Californian prison she was provided with a programme of instruction to assist her to adjust to her new existence on the outside. Her attorney said: “She doesn’t know how to use a computer or a cell phone or how to buy things without cash or negotiate a supermarket.”

These are basic skills for modern life. Even those of us with plenty of experience need to hone our instincts to keep our money safe. Or it could be that the much-vaunted “user-friendly digital payments technology” has to become less convenient for everyone, including the corporations who are so keen on its dominance.

Tricky road for robo-taxis

If you were told there’s an American city where people are regarded legally not as owners of their pets, but as their guardians, you might not be entirely surprised. And if you were further informed the location was San Francisco, your flabber would not be gasted. Peace and love; magic mushrooms; the Beat Poets... that’s just the way they roll.

Thinking outside the box has long been a West Coast tradition. following changes to local ordinance to prevent care of domestic animals being governed by property rights, city authorities are being asked to open up their roads to fully autonomous vehicles — that’s driverless cabs to the rest of us.

Experiments with “robo-taxis” using AI technology, radar, and cameras, have been taking place in areas of San Francisco since last year.

Two companies, Waymo, part of Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Cruise, part of General Motors, have asked for an expansion of 24-hour licensing which could authorise up to 100,000 journeys per year.

A decision has been put back to next month while experts mull over incidents such as blocking emergency vehicles and knocking down a dog. Currently, unexpected circumstances appear to confuse the AI, leading it to shut down.

Opponents have been disabling the vehicles by placing traffic cones on their bonnets. Protest group Safe Street Rebel says healthy cities don’t require an increase in “hi-tech surveillance pods”. Supporters say the machines have great potential for road safety.

One engineering professor says: “We still have 30% to 40% of fatality accidents associated with a drug-impaired or a drunk driver. We wouldn’t have those kinds of issues with autonomous cars.” 

Given continuing pressure to reduce urban speeds, it is likely we will hear much more about driverless cars in the generations to come. But it will, perhaps thankfully, be a while before they reach Ireland.