Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2020-12-18
============================================================

James Browne (FF), Wexford

There is also a reasonable person-test then applied to that. One could have somebody who might think something is serious that simply is not. On the other hand, the Senator is correct that just because that person is a little more robust should not mean that somebody can get away with something more there as well. The courts have to take into account what they consider to be a reasonable person. There is much case law around that as well. It can be, I suppose, if one is simply taking the word on its own, a question of what it means but there is much case law around that as well once one applies the reasonable person test as well. All of those have to be taken into consideration.

---

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/2020-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-12-18