The scaled down version of the Hate Crime Bill still has controversial elements that would introduce radical notions of gender into Irish law, according to two independent Senators.

Speaking to the Irish Times, Senator Michael McDowell said: “The Bill suggests that there are genders (plural) other than male or female”, though it does not enumerate what those might be.

Mr McDowell said that even the Gender Recognition Act, which allows people to legally change their gender, recognised only two genders, male and female.

A provision that recognises additional genders would raise questions “over statutory provisions providing for gender balance in judicial appointments, board compositions, etc”.

“There is no case for legislating for an open-ended multiplicity of subjective genders the meaning of which is obscure,” he said.

Meanwhile, speaking to the Irish Catholic, Senator Ronan Mullen said the Government’s amended plan is still problematic because that it uses a notion of gender “that’s from an NGO, that’s full of ideology and denies the basic realities of the gender of male and female. It would be more than nonsense to put that into law in any shape or form – harmful nonsense”.