Simon Harris pledged the Government won’t ‘abandon’ the Hate Speech bill even as another Minister admitted it is unlikely to pass into law.

This comes as Sinn Fein announced their opposition to the bill and numerous backbench FF and FG deputies called for it to be withdrawn.

Minister Harris said the Programme for Government committed to the legislation, “for good reason,” while granting that there have been, “a number of legitimate questions raised” about it.

On the Tonight show, however, Minister of State Neale Richmond said that while it is possible the legislation could become law before the next election, “realistically, I think there is a review process under way… there’s an awful lot of amendments to review, and there’s an awful lot of people both in favour of it and against it who want that to be reflected upon …”

Presenter Ciara Doherty responded: “Its gone, Neale, I think what you’re saying but not explicit, the Hate Speech legislation is gone, isn’t it?”

“I think in its current format it would be very hard to see it progress through the Dail, but we are going back to reflect on it as Barry and others have asked us”, he replied.

FF TD Barry Cowen added: “I’m thinking of ‘going, going, gone’ and in its present format its going nowhere”.