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“GO AND VOTE” is a mantra you’ll be hearing a lot today.
From broadcasters, and from candidates, whose only concern, of course, is that you take part in the democratic process, regardless of who you give your Number 1 to.
In countless Facebook posts, and a text message from your mother: Don’t forget to vote. Make sure you leave time to get to the polling station. EVERY VOTE COUNTS.
But throughout Irish history, there have been several examples of Dáil seats, even political careers, being decided by the ballot papers of fewer people than you could fit around a table in the Dáil bar.
Three Dáil seats in the last 35 years have been won by five votes.
And Dublin South-Central in 1992 saw the “Ben and Eric Show” – when Fianna Fáil’s Ben Briscoe and Democratic Left’s Eric Byrne sat through what is believed to be the longest recount in Irish history.
After 13 counts, Byrne won the seat by 10 votes, but after 10 days of recounts, the result was overturned, leading the victorious Briscoe to famously describe the experience as “The Agony and the Ex-TD.”
In the following election, a political rivalry for the ages was born when the Green Party’s John Gormley defeated Progressive Democrat Michael McDowell by 35 votes, after a week-long recount in Dublin South-East.
McDowell vowed to quit politics then, telling reporters his decision was “irrevocable” and would take effect “whenever I get off the cross of this interminable recount.”
Five years later, he was back in the Dáil, and in 2007, Gormley got the better of him again, edging him out for the final seat by just 304 votes, making McDowell the first Tánaiste in history to lose his seat.
We talked to three politicians at the heart of two of the closest elections in recent memory, and found out what they learned from their roles in Irish political history.
‘An awful way to win, but a terrible way to lose’ – Limerick-West, 2002
As close elections go, Dan Neville has them all beat.
In 2002, he won the last of three seats in Limerick West, edging out his Fine Gael colleague Michael Finucane, by exactly one vote.
The two men had what Neville somewhat diplomatically calls a “keen competition” within the party in Limerick West for more than a decade.
In 1987, the Fine Gael vote was split and both men lost out, with Fianna Fáil taking two seats, and the PDs the third.
Two years later, Neville – who is retiring as a TD this year – stood aside and was elected to the Seanad, clearing the way for Finucane to grab a Dáil seat for Fine Gael.
In 1992, Finucane retained it, with Neville failing to get elected and staying on in the Seanad.
In 1997, both were elected – the first time ever that Fine Gael took two out of three seats in traditionally Fianna Fáil-dominated Limerick-West.
Neville topped the poll, and Finucane was later made Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
“There were some battles won for him and some battles won for me,” Neville told TheJournal.ie this week, in the years leading up to what would be a contest for the history books in 2002.
From the very outset of the count, the two were neck and neck.
Neville had a lead of just 36 votes at first, before a swing in the second count left Finucane six votes ahead.
As an illustration of just how extraordinarily close the results were, when Fianna Fáil’s Michael Collins crossed the line on the third count, 183 of his transfers went to Finucane, and 184 went to Neville.
The gap between the party colleagues was narrowed to five votes.
“We were close enough,” Neville says, in his characteristically understated manner. ”But I was transfer-friendly from all other candidates.” This was to prove the difference.
On the fourth count, all the other remaining candidates – from the Green Party, Christian Solidarity party, and an Independent – were eliminated. Neville took 702 of their transfers, and Finucane took 696, leaving Neville one vote ahead.
Finucane ordered a recount, which began on Saturday night and continued for alost two days. The trend, however, was becoming clear by Sunday – Neville’s lead was widening – and on Monday lunchtime, Finucane decided to end everyone’s agony, and conceded.
The recount was cut short, and in the end, that six-vote swing in transfers on Saturday gave Dan Neville back a seat in Dáil Éireann by the smallest possible margin.
However, amid the nitty gritty of political rivalry, keen-eyed tallymen and half-stamped ballots that weekend, Neville was hurtled back into the real world.
The day of the election, my wife got a call to say her father was seriously ill in the nursing home. Then on the day of the first count we were informed he would not survive.
Neville’s father-in-law had lived with the family for 17 years, and while he and his son Tom (running in Limerick County in this year’s election) kept an eye on the count, the rest of the family spent the day in his company at the nursing home.
Then, on the Saturday, just as the count adjourned, we got a phone call that he had died.
“It was very, very personal,” he adds.
When I was elected, I took some of my colleagues for one drink, and then I went away to arrange the funeral.
There was no elation, Neville says.
Even with my supporters at the declaration, there was no triumphalism at all, there was just a very quiet clap.
This was especially so because of the agonising manner in which he had edged out Finucane, who ran again in 2007, but lost.
“It was an awful way to win an election,” Neville says. “But it was a terrible way to lose it.”
Finucane, who didn’t respond to our attempts to reach him for this article, never held office again after 2002. He remains active in politics, however, and was campaign manager for MEP Seán Kelly’s successful re-election bid in 2014.
The family bereavement surrounding Neville’s historic win in 2002 should provide some perspective for any candidates who come out on the wrong end of a long and painful count this weekend.
It is very, very traumatic for themselves and their family. They’ll feel especially for their families and their campaigners – the many people who worked so hard for them.
“I was there, and I came back,” he advises. “Don’t give up.”
Digging a ditch and watching cricket – Cork South-Central, 2002
With his livelihood on the line, and seven children to help provide for, John Dennehy sat at home in Togher all day and watched cricket.
It was Saturday, 18 May 2002, and the votes were being counted in the constituency of Cork South-Central, after the general election the previous day.
“I’m not big into cricket, but I think England were playing India, if I remember correctly,” he told TheJournal.ie this week.
It was probably the slowest thing I could find on television.
Dennehy, an incumbent Fianna Fáil TD, was a steel fitter by trade, and a former supervisor at Irish Steel, before getting into politics.
He won a seat in 1987, getting the second-highest number of first preference votes, but lost it to party colleague Batt O’Keeffe five years later.
After what he calls “a moment of madness”, he decided to throw his hat in the ring again in 1997, and won one of three Fianna Fáil seats that year, along with Micheál Martin, and O’Keeffe again.
At around the same time, with counting under way, Kathy Sinnott was digging a ditch outside her home in the village of Ballinhassig, on the southern edge of the constituency.
“I thought, ‘If I become a TD, no-one’s going to do this, so I better get it done’”, she told TheJournal.ie by phone from the US this week.
She had come to national prominence two years earlier as disability campaigner, successfully suing the state to secure the right of her adult son Jamie, who is autistic, to get a primary education, although the ruling was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
Dennehy was 549 votes ahead of Sinnott after the first count, and stretched his lead until Labour’s Brendan Ryan, and future Fine Gael MEP Deirdre Clune were eliminated on the sixth count, and Sinnott took the bulk of their transfers.
When she took 930 transfers from Simon Coveney, she was within 30 of Dennehy.
The Green Party’s Dan Boyle was elected on the 10th count, and most of his transfers also went to Sinnott, giving her the last of five Dáil seats by an astonishing three votes, at 4am on Sunday morning.
But that was far from the end of the story.
Dennehy recalls that Mick O’Brien – one of his supporters and the late uncle of Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien – spotted some irregularities with around 50 ballots, and called in Micheál Martin, who had topped the poll and exceeded the quota by almost 5,000 votes.
Fianna Fáil ordered a recount.
Sinnott remembers the future party leader supervising proceedings with an eagle eye, and “arguing until he was red in the face” over every last ballot paper.
“It was tense, very tense,” says Dennehy. “I tried not to get despondent or get my hopes up.”
“He was suffering incredibly,” is how Sinnott remembers it.
After losing his seat in 1992, Dennehy says he and his wife Philomena had experienced a certain degree of financial pressure, surviving off his pension from Irish Steel and having “no outside resources,” but he emphasises that her support for him was unflinching and essential to him.
“Kathy’s right,” he says. “There was a huge amount on the line for us.”
Despite the high stakes, the many hours of agonising waiting, and the knowledge that one of them would have to lose, Dennehy says “there was no animosity” between the candidates.
We never fell out. We kind of stayed close and watched the counts. There was concern for the other, I think it’s fair to say.
When she initially came out on top after the 10th count, Sinnott says she “felt bad about winning.”
But it was a consolation that I could put [John] out of his misery.
On the Monday, however, the first recount reversed the result, giving Dennehy a lead of two votes.
The front page of the next morning’s Irish Examiner carried a photo of Sinnott and Dennehy embracing tightly, after his lead was announced.
And on Wednesday night, the second recount resulted in him winning the final seat by six votes.
“The relief was unimaginable,” he recalls. “I felt 10 feet tall.”
After that came the gratitude. He tried to track down some of those who had voted for him, and sent many letters of effusive thanks.
What amazed me was the answering machine at home – it was emptied I’d say 20 times.
I couldn’t believe the number of phone calls – people praying, lighting candles, you name it.
John Dennehy, who lost that election by two votes, before winning it by six, has a message for anyone thinking of staying at home today.
“If only six people – one carload – had stayed at home, I wouldn’t have been elected,” he says.
“Every single vote is crucial.”
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Anything for attention…..
@: Says the faceless troll on the Journal…
@: says the person giving them some
@GMCManning: I think the same system that fails them fails us all. these thugs that attack gay people are the same people that attack young males randomly, people of different ethnic backgrounds , the disabled , Above this article is a gent who attacked two pensioners because he assumed they were abusers , he had 90+ convictions , who else did his convictions include. Were dealing with the same people in most of our justice issues in Ireland
@: True !
Have these people no work to go to?
@Josh Hanners: Says the unemployed guy. I presume you’re unemployed. You’re on TheJournal which means you’re obviously not working. Or, is it that you think people should do in their free time only whatever you personally deem acceptable? Perhaps you could give us all permission slips with what we can and cannot do? Subject, of course, to your gracious will.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: could the writer not be on their way home, on the bus?
@Josh Hanners: so all protestors are unemployed? Original. Assume the yellow vests and protestors in Hong Kong are jobless too?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: sorry to hear you lost your job mate
@Pan Tyndall: stop, be nice. Brian’s unemployed
@Pan Tyndall: The protestors could be off shift, on holiday, or not be rostered for today. The writer seems to live in a world where either you are in work or you don’t have a job. The writer’s own logic implies that if you’re on a bus, then you, too, do not have a job. That’s the level of stupidity coming from him.
@Pan Tyndall: or even having a day off? Honestly, some people will post anything trying to sound clever, and end up sounding anything but!
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: I do shift work so yes I’m off ;)
@Josh Hanners: One of those interviewed was on her lunch break. It literally says it in the article….
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Retired after 51years of work, but who am I to contradict you, put me down as unemployed.
Maybe I am wrong, but aren’t there already laws around this? If someone is harassed or assaulted, that already can be covered as crimes… are we just not enforcing the law we have right now? Do we just need more Gardaí and better judges to put in place proper sentences?
@Richard: Did you read the article? Throw your eyes over the 3rd paragraph.
@Peter D W Clancy: but the crimes he is describing already fall under the threshold for prosecution of legislation currently on the statute
@Peter D W Clancy:
3rd paragraph didn’t explain why prosecuting someone for assault for reason (x) should be treated differently than assault for reason agism
@Disco Inferno: Yes but for a crime that is different due to motivation. We differentiate homicide and murder depending on the motivation behind the crime, why should we not differentiate between a random attack vs an attack motivated by hatred?
@Peter D W Clancy: there are laws against violence?
@Diarmuid Hunt: where do you draw the line? Theft act deals with those who steal for personal gain and those who steal to survive. There’s no differentiation until sentence when mitigating circumstances are presented. Seems to work fine
@Pete Lee: There are laws against all of it but this is ridiculous, Ireland, as a people (apart from an uneducated few) don’t give a shit who your in to. Go about your life as normal, sticks and stones and all that……..
@Disco Inferno: So we should get rid of homicide laws? Personally I believe that those who steal to survive are different than those that do it for personal gain. Where do you you draw the line?
@Diarmuid Hunt: I didn’t say get rid of homicide laws? At all.
@Will Thompson: Most Irish people don’t murder other people does that mean we shouldn’t legislate against murder? Weak argument.
@Disco Inferno: You said that motivation doesn’t matter with regards to theft, if we bring that same reasoning to homicide vs murder then that is exactly what you said.
@Peter D W Clancy: His point stands, there is laws to deal with crime against a person already,. It seems the chap in the article wants a law against glaring?
@Diarmuid Hunt: what I said is they can be prosecutions brought under legislation we have already, and the sentence can be such based on the mitigating circumstances of said offence. Same as reducing a murder charge to manslaughter.
@Diarmuid Hunt: am I wrong in saying that in ireland their are no homicide cases. It’s either murder or manslaughter. I’ve never seen a prosecution for homicide
@Joe Mc: That was my mistake in terminology, sorry about that.
@Diarmuid Hunt: what’s the difference in law between homicide & murder?
@Shane Cormac O’Duibhleachain: Meant manslaughter and murder. Homicide is the killing of one person by another, it includes manslaughter, murder and lawful killings like in a war combat situation.
Does nobody work anymore?!
@Jeremy Moynihan: of course they do. Let me ask you some questions. Have you ever been to a hospital at 8 pm? Or had a pint at 11 pm? Ever taken a flight at 5 am? Ever had a meal on a Sunday? Or, are you really so thick that you think everyone works the same schedule as you?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: someone a liiittle bit touchy… I see you’re very engaged in the comments section here and slating quite a few people – why the anger bruh?!
@Jeremy Moynihan: yawn…”all protestors are jobless”. Says a bit when that’s the best you and plenty of others can come up with as opposed to commenting on the validity of their protest.
@Jeremy Moynihan: So you’ve been shown your argument has no basis and resort to calling Brian touchy? Are you sure you’re not projecting?
@Jeremy Moynihan: why do you hate people standing up and protesting for their right to life and their right to not be assaulted or attacked? The only possible logic behind your initial comment is that you want cyclists to be killed on the roads and you want LGBT+ people to be attacked and assaulted. If you did not want this and you supported their right to be safe, you would not have posted your original comment.
@GMCManning: I’m insinuating the protest is invalid – Ireland is relatively open to lesbian and gay people but their general treatment should be absolutely indistinguishable from straight people (so I accept there is still a bit to go) but harassment/bullying/assault are already illegal so there are channels for these wrongs to be addressed so why basically say “this group of people should be treat the same as everybody else so we should treat them differently”?
@Diarmuid Hunt: Pretty sure (and it wasn’t an argument, it was a question)
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Have you ever considered athletes? That’s quite a leap!
@Jeremy Moynihan: if that’s what I were trying to insinuate then ur doing it badly. What you actually insinuated was either all protestors are unemployed or somehow all gay protestors (or those who protest with them) are unemployed. Silly either way really. As for the legislation, it’s needed cos being assaulted and being assaulted for being gay/different race etc are not the same and yes I know the physical injuries are
@Jeremy Moynihan: I guess you feel this man should have no right to protest? https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/garda%C3%AD-treating-attack-on-gay-man-as-a-hate-crime-1.4054178
@Jeremy Moynihan: What about homophobia being rife in Ireland? Should we accept and, hence, tacitly encourage homophobia as you seem to want? https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/homophobia-rife-in-ireland-says-broadcaster-courtney-925363.html
@Jeremy Moynihan: maybe guys like this man here (https://gcn.ie/gay-man-viciously-beaten-gang-sligo-pub/) should just keep their mouths shut?
@Jeremy Moynihan: No but to pose the question you must have a reasoning behind it i.e an argument. I thought we could discuss your stance (argument) rather than debate semantics, apparently I was wrong. How is someone feeling strongly about a subject (such as equality) being touchy?
@GMCManning: I think we’re actually not that far apart, you an I – we both agree that being gay is not a valid reason for being treated differently but how we achieve that is where we split. Obviously, I think I’m right but I’ve a feeling I’m not going to convince you in a comments section..
The who “you think everyone who protests is unemployed” argument is a misnomer as it’s assuming that the protest itself is always valid.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I’ll admit I was being a bit smart but only because you’re defending someone who’s immediate response to my original post was to call me thick! It boils down to what I’ve said stated above: should people be treated equally (I think they should) or should some be treated differently under law (which is what a hate crime would do)?
Assault is assault whether the victim is gay or not – an aggravating factor would then be that the victim was targeted for being gay
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Brian, sit down in a quite room and control your breathing – you’re losing the run of yourself! I’ve already said multiple times that NOBODY should be assaulted but you refuse to recognise this
@Jeremy Moynihan: you have said that NOBODY should be assaulted. But, you have also implied, by suggesting that these people should be working, that nobody should protest, even if they are victims of homophobic assaults. Maybe, instead of posting stupid comments you could be asking why these people are being attacked and asking yourself why you need to make snide and cynical comments that do nothing but undermine their very real protest trying to protect their lives.
@Jeremy Moynihan: it’s not the comments section that stops me being convinced as to your opinion. It’s that I disagree with it. A protest being valid or not and protestors being employed or not are two completely different things. You can argue the first (much as I’d completely disagree in this instance) the second is just infantile misdirection pointing to a weak position.
@Jeremy Moynihan: Probably a fairy
@Jeremy Moynihan: Brian is short fussed, arrogant ,touchy it seems for certain topics he has to be hiding something.
Sure FFG cant get to grips with real crime so perceived crime. Not a chance. But a kissing protest. That will really get you taken seriously. NOT
@Leo Lalor: what would you like them to do? Burn themselves alive? Throw petrol bombs into buses? Guillotine a priest?
@Leo Lalor: they are a joke? They are being beaten up, stabbed, bullied, etc. And you think they are a joke because they no longer want to be attacked? What kind of sicko are you?
@Leo Lalor: good man Leo. So when your 15 year old son tells you he’s gay, your response will be to ‘grow up’? Unless, of course, he gets beaten to death first? Sounds like lots of laughs alright.
@jamesdecay: he’d probably just beat his own kid to death. No need for Mr Lalor to wait for someone else to do it. It’s what homophobes who defend violence against LGBT+ people tend to do.
Here am I knackered trying to earn a few miserable few euro and all these people can arse around outside the Dail on a weekday.
@TM B: Says the guy arsing around on TheJournal. Why don’t you get yourself a proper job, then? One that gives you both money and free time?
@TM B: so it’s gay people’s fault that your lot in life isn’t better, how’s that exactly?
@TM B: Have you ever heard of this thing called an annual leave day? Ya know… Those days where you’re entitled to take a day off work…. Is it so hard to imagine that people affected by something and who feel strongly enough about it would actually use one of their holiday days to attend something in relation to it? Get over yourself.
@TM B: If you had worked hard in school you might have a decent salary now. A bit late bemoaning your wasted youth now.
Can’t say I particularly like that first picture of people kissing. Personally, can’t stand seeing couples eating the faces off each other. Doesn’t matter what genders make up the couple either.. it all looks disgusting to me..
@Mirabelle Stonegate: probably something for your shrink.
@GMCManning: Probably will have it’s own section in DSM-6 “offended by public displays of affection”.
@Diarmuid Hunt: maybe ICD-12 will get there first.
@FannyPadFanning: Maybe you could recommend yours?
@Pickles: hey stalky. Oooh bet you’d love that job. Sitting down chatting about me. It’d basically be your journal contributions just in real life.
@FannyPadFanning : did you just put a post up without asking a question? Bi polar meds working are they?
@GMCManning: Want to pay for one for me? They cost far too much money, which doesn’t help the fact that I’m suicidal, and have been for over a year.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I’m not offended by them, I just find them as pleasant to look at as dog poop.
I’m a hertrosexual cyclist who has been knocked off my bike (form behind I might add) abused and attacked by motorists and pedestrians… I’m probably in a Majority or maybe a small minority can anyone direct me to a protesting group or sub group where I belong?
@Tony Henry: There was a protest for the last two days outside the Dáil where cyclists staged a ‘die in’. You’re very welcome.
@Matthew Corrigan: I don’t feel marginalised enough to protest just yet……. next one to call me a traveller because I’m on a bike while abusing me and that’s it my protest will begin in anger!!
@Tony Henry: Are you saying you experience hate crime too. Well if you want your grievance noted and recorded, you could join them, and kiss your bike!
@Tony Henry: Wow. That’s a sad comparison. Has anyone, to your knowledge, ever targeted you specifically for being a cyclist? Have you ever arranged to meet another cyclist and it turns out to be a car driver who tries to run you over with their car and kill you?
@Tony Henry: I could direct you into oncoming traffic?
Holy jaysus!
@macca1986: he was all about hanging out with the lads
We should have straight pride and gay pride days come together on what ever day or days are picked and have one massive p i s s up, could work on a bank holiday weekend, be class
@Martin Harte: Nothing stopping anybody and everybody joining in with the ‘Pride’ parties. There’s no rule saying you have to be gay. If you take issue with them anyway, then it would seem there’s something else at play.
@Martin Harte: Nobody is stopping a straight pride celebration, the only reason we have a gay pride celebration is because historically homosexuals were oppressed and now they celebrate because they aren’t. Have you been oppressed for being straight? (not that that stops you from organising and/or partaking in a straight pride celebration)
Surely existing legislation covers these crimes? I think there is enough dodgy reporting by guards and especially self perpetuating quangos.
I certainly have an issue if this extends to speech (which i suspect is the actual intention). I don’t trust politicians, judicial “interpretations” and definitely the woeful media.
@Trajan1000: 3rd paragraph of the article…
“Ireland is one of the few countries in the EU which has no purpose-built legislation to deal with hate crimes, which means that there are no public statistics available on hate crimes or racist attacks.”
Clown World
@John Blessing: And you are the lead clown.
@Desperadow: Oh I see the defender of clown world all you need now is to get a job.
The people complaining about this are 9 times out of 10 people who will never experience the issue
If someone is beaten up for their sexual preference then the perpetrators should be given severe sentences. In fact I support severe sentences for all violent crime. Our cities are out of control and a crackdown is long overdue. We all need to be free to walk the streets in peace no matter who we are or who we are with. Legislation alone will not protect us however. Without enforcement we have no law. I for one welcome this seeming conversation of the liberal left to a sensible law and order position. I remember a few years ago getting lost in London and being worried about the area. Then I saw a gay couple holding hands and I felt safer. That’s the kind of place I want to live in. That’s why we pay taxes. Let’s have it.
If you get attacked you get attacked does it matter the reason it s still wrong has physical and psychological impact upon you but should we all not be treated equally under the colour of law or if your gay heterosexual or trans you should get special treatment not sure I agree with that
@Ter: of course the reason matters. If you can identify the reasons then you can put in place structures and procedures to help limit the numbers of their occurrences. Lumping in hate crime with all other types of crime means you cannot separate the motives, meaning you have no meaningful way of helping to protect against attacks. And laws are designed to do precisely that: protect people.
So if a gay guy gets beaten up the attacker will get a tougher sentence than if he had attacked a straight guy, that’s literally the definition of inequality. Also “hate” speech laws terrify me, who defines what’s “hateful”. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@paul jones: Is that what they are doing, asking for tougher sentences for attacks on gay people? no they are not. They are asking that this country recognises and records such attacks as ‘hate crimes’ so that we can really see what’s going on in this country in that regard! we should be careful though when it comes to defining ‘hate speech’ and criminalising it. Agree with you there. Sticks and stones and all that…
@Marie Broomfield: You are wrong. If a “hateful “ element to the attack is claimed, (I was mugged and he called be a q***r whilst doing it) then yes that means a tougher sentence. It’s the mugging plus the hatful element. But a straight white person getting mugged the same night by the same guy only gets justice for the mugging. Also they are cleverly linking “hate” speech to “hate” crimes , so it will be one big authoritarian package. No more talking about Direct Provision, immigration, transgenderism etc
It’s baffling how we can be so forward thinking in some ways and utterly backwards in others. There is zero reason not to pass hate crime legislation. It’ll only negatively affect those guilty of it so depressing to read those above arguing, badly, against it.
Soooo, straight men feel left out that they’re not getting beaten to a pulp for kissing a woman on the street? And they actually can’t believe that they are missing out on getting verbally abused for how they look or who they hold hands with on the regular. They would also like these things to happen to them and not be able to have it dealt with accordingly. Got it!
@Très Bien: Oh, and getting beaten up is… *checks notes*… a ‘perceived crime’ now too apparently.
@gofreak: getting beaten up and getting beaten up for being gay are different things and legislation as well as the statistics on both are necessary
@GMCManning: What about getting beaten up as a woman? Will the murder of women be included in this bill? If there’s going to be special treatment for being gay why not for women too? Women are beaten up and murdered because they are women at thousands the rate of gay people so why not?
AFFS!
Delighted more people are getting out and protesting, maybe it’ll finally change the mindset in Dáil Érinann that the Irish people can be taken for granted and will accept whatever is put to them.
Shifty behaviour!
That last quote there ” make laws to protect us” , i’m afraid laws don’t protect you, they give you access to justice. After the fact!
Who decides whats a hate crime and whats nit?should we trust them?should we have our language dictated? NO
The looney left
@Josh Gilman: Shhhh
Hate crimes aren’t real
If your goal is to stop hate; what makes you think this is the answer? Are we trying to condition people with the law not to behave in a certain way? Like a Pavlovian dog? Or should we not be trying change the minds which create the behaviour? To not take away free will. Is there any way for you to consider that and protect people?
I am just saying that fines and prisons is not education. It is not a transformative process. It will not change attitudes or enlighten people.
We can agree that their behaviour is unacceptable. The question is how do you transform it while respecting the individual?
What about counselling? Group discussion? Treat it as a mental issue. And require some actions by the people to help them transform.
I think there should be a broad and open discussion on this.
It’s very unsettling to me to see so many people here who are opposed to hate crime legislation, but not surprising that it’s all coming from cis, white men who’ve never feared 1) travelling alone, 2) talking to strangers or 3) meeting someone from a dating app (in case they’re actually a bunch of dirtbags waiting to kick their head in). These are just a few examples of ways in which a gay person can be “outed” and suddenly subjected to verbal or physical abuse.
Hate crime legislation needs to exist because the people who carry out attacks based on race, orientation, gender identity or gender expression, need to be tried differently to someone who is, for example mugging you because they are poor and desperate, or attacking you because they are downright psychotic. The legislation being sought will not punish people more severely for carrying out hate crimes, but if these people can be brought to justice under the law and their crime be called what it really is, whether it be racism, homophobia etc, then maybe others will learn that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. Remember, nobody is born homophobic, racist or xenophobic, they learn it from the society that they exist and grow up in.
Can somebody please explain to me what is wrong with any of that?
@James J Gough: It’s all wrong. We live in a Republic. By definition it means we are all equal under the law. No special treatment. A crime is a crime, no matter who the victim or who the perpetrator.
Do you actually believe anyone on here believes criminals shouldn’t be punished. Of course not. In fact I believe sentences across the board need to go up in this country.
Everyone on here has feared walking alone or talking to strangers, many times in their life’s. As for dating apps, people of all sexuality’s have had awful experiences on them, have been blackmailed, robbed, raped and even killed.
So in answer to your question, this “hate” crime and speech is just like gender quotas. These are wrong and discriminatory methods. In fact I believe both are unconstitutional if only someone would challenge them.
Fair play to them.Stuff all the sad,boring people in the comments section saying “why aren’t they at work?”You are a bunch of joyless moaners.
Will misogynistic comments be classed as hate speech?
Idiots.
LGBT+ people across Ireland deserve to live happy lives free from prejudice. For that to happen, we must all step up to help bring #homophobia, #biphobia and #transphobia to an end.
If you see it, #call #It #Out
This is the quote from the article
“The police and the guards and the courts aren’t able to deal with his case in any different way than like a drunken brawl on the street. And we all know that the motivations for those two crimes are very different but the courts can’t deal with the crimes any differently,” he said.
Can someone explain to me why it is different? One is an assault because reason x and the other is an assault because reason homophobia. They are both assualt, are they now?
have your say