Criminal Law, Civil Law and Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-02 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland No. There is no protection in this in respect of circumstances where a mask is worn on medical grounds or for religious purposes. That is not in the Bill. The Minister is just telling us it will not get used for that. There is no carve-out for those circumstances. There is no carve-out for those who may be protesting. I have been to protests. I have seen protests where persons are very concerned about the safety of their families. I refer to those who were protesting, for example, about the situation in Afghanistan. They are very keen not to be recognised because they are conscious of the vulnerability of their family members who may still be in that country but they want to convey a message. Perhaps they send that message loudly. Maybe they are shouting or blocking a public road or something and, rather than prosecuting, if a garda believes they are intimidating, they can now be asked to remove their mask or facial covering because a garda decides that the fact the person is wearing that covering could intimidate another person. That means that some persons, including medically vulnerable persons, persons who belong to a religious minority and persons who may have particular exposures, could suddenly find themselves with an offence against them. I ask the Minster to bear in mind that these are not people who are engaging in intimidation. If they were engaging in intimidation, the Garda already has an offence under which to prosecute them, namely, for engaging in intimidating behaviour. This relates to being likely to intimidate a person. What we know about how these kinds of things get interpreted, and have been interpreted in other countries, is that often there is racial or religious profiling. We have all seen the videos where somebody on a plane says there is a Muslim on the plane and he or she does not feel safe. We have seen situations where people have been asked to leave because another person finds them unnerving or potentially intimidating. Again, the bar now is not intimidation. The bar that the Minister is introducing is an opinion that the face covering is likely to intimidate another person. The Minister will say that, yes, it is where a person engages in such activities. Let us consider the activities. The amendment states: "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, acting in a manner which consists of loitering in a public place in circumstances, which may include the company of other persons, that give rise to a reasonable apprehension for the safety of persons or the safety of property or for the maintenance of public peace". Again, if a person is participating, we have seen where far-right protests, directly designed to intimidate, have often not been in fact responded to. If a person is in one of the counter-protests, however, and protesting in respect of the rights of migrants and refugees, or is wearing a face covering for religious reasons, he or might be asked to remove the mask. The reference to it being for the reasons of public peace, does not mean that individual in question is the active disturber of the public peace. It is the fact that the person being there may provoke others to take violent or aggressive action, and that is considered as a risk to the public peace. There is a huge set of circumstances here. My point is that the Minister already has the public order Act. He already has tools. There are already tools which can and should be used appropriately in respect of situations of intimidating behaviour. This is something extra. It comes alongside a whole new set of provisions in respect of the use of facial recognition technologies but without any protective measures, in this law put forward, in respect of religious observance, a medical condition or, indeed, personal safety. The Minister mentioned carve-outs and said, "I recognise this and I recognise that." The law does not recognise them. It does not even recognise them as a defence, if a person was later to be prosecuted for an offence as a result of failing to remove a facial covering when told to do so by a garda and the person might have not done it for those very good reasons. That is not even recognised as a defence in this piece. There is simply no protection for those vulnerable groups under the law being introduced by the Minister. There is also a huge new vulnerability which, again, is compounded by the unknown implications of facial recognition technologies and their more widespread use under other legislation put forward by the Minister. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-02/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:09+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-02