Criminal Law, Civil Law and Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-02
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

-----but that there is a particular vulnerability and there are persons for whom the application of this law will have a more negative impact.
I wish to address two factual things. If we had had this properly teased out maybe we could have resolved this. There may be forms of words that would have addressed it but as the Minister said there are not carve-outs or defences and that language Senator McDowell used of a "reasonable excuse" does not apply to the wearing of a face covering. The "reasonable excuse" applies to acting in a manner that gives rise to "reasonable apprehension". If there had been "reasonable excuse" clauses added in respect of the facial covering persons would be able to say they had a reasonable excuse for the face covering. That would not even have required the kind of explicit listing I was suggesting of categories which should be recognised.
Again, the bar is not the question of the intent to intimidate. If the Ku Klux Klan are standing outside your house or a bunch of people wearing masks are shouting "Immigrants out", or any other message, they are intimidating and they may be wearing masks with intent to intimidate but the bar here is "in a manner that is likely to intimidate another person". That is a bar that crosses the line to diminish privacy and the proper right to protest. Let us say there is an executive in a company and there is a big protest outside and everybody is shouting about, say, supplying minerals that allow the production of bombs. We know those example in Ireland right now. The executive says they are very intimidated or a garda says they believe this person may be intimidated by the fact there are persons outside who are shouting in protest and who could intimidate another person. Any other person could include a person who is legitimately being protested at, which is not intimidation of them because that would be covered under the proposed section 8C(b)(i). They are there not with the intent to intimidate but simply in a manner that a person could find intimidating and that is a very different thing. The Minister talked about the balancing of the powers and verbally recognised the things he is balancing but the section as introduced does not succeed in balancing those concerns. Again, it points to how it is a pity it is being introduced at this late Stage. There should have been better clarity about the "reasonable excuse". Maybe the paragraphs (i) and (ii) of the proposed section 8C(b) could have been looked at but I am not going to have the opportunity to try to amend the Minister's amendment because he has introduced it on Report Stage. If he had done so on Committee Stage then we would have a Report Stage debate in which I could come back and look for the nuance. I could suggest different wording. Maybe "reasonable excuse" should be applied to the wearing of the face mask as well. Maybe it should be in relation to intent to intimidate but not in relation to an interpretative "manner that is likely to intimidate". Maybe the balance could be got better in terms of those constitutional rights on protest on privacy, with of course the duty to protect and preserve public safety and the public. However, we will not get the chance to tweak this because of the manner in which the Minister has chosen to introduce it. That is part of the problem. That is why it is not as blunt as some people thinking everything goes and some people thinking we need to do something. It is not just what the Minister is doing but the way it is being done that is problematic and that is why I cannot support this amendment.

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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