For the first time in the history of the State it will become a specific criminal offence, with longer prison terms, to commit a hate crime based on the colour of a person’s skin, sexual orientation or their gender, including gender expression or identity.

The new offences, set to be provided for under the are the first of their kind in the Republic. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee published the general scheme of the Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021 on Friday morning.

Displaying content intended to incite hatred in a public place, including on social media, will carry a prison sentence of up to six months on conviction. However, very specific “intent or recklessness” criteria must be met before such charges can be brought. This is to ensure “giving offence” is not criminalised.

The threshold for criminal incitement means a person must either have deliberately set out to incite hatred, or at the very least have considered whether what they were doing would incite hatred, concluded that it was significantly likely, and decided to press ahead anyway.

While the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989 has been in place for over three decades, it deals with hate speech, requires a higher threshold of evidence, resulted in very few prosecutions, and does not cover gender, disability or Traveller ethnicity.