Tag: ireland

Irish Government Admits No Free Speech Impact Assessment for “Misinformation” Laws

Irish authorities have moved ahead with extensive legislation aimed at tackling “misinformation,” yet they have not examined whether such measures might undermine free expression. The Department responsible for communications, media, and environmental policy has acknowledged that no analysis has been carried out to assess the consequences for free speech.

Responding to a media query from Gript, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications plainly admitted: “The Department has not undertaken any analysis or research on the potential impact of mis/disinformation laws on free speech.”

Despite this lack of evaluation, the government continues to defend its strategy. Speaking outside Government Buildings, Taoiseach (Prime Minster) Micheál Martin insisted the effort to curb online falsehoods is justified, arguing that some speech doesn’t merit protection. “It’s not freedom of speech, really, when it’s just a blatant lie and untruth, which can create a lot of public disquiet, as we have seen,” he said.

Martin downplayed the idea that regulating disinformation represents any serious threat to expressive freedoms, stating: “There are very strong protections in our constitution and in our laws and freedom of speech.” He added, “I wouldn’t overstate the impact on clamping down on blatant lies online as a sort of incursion or an undermining of freedom of speech.”

When pressed on whether the absence of impact studies was irresponsible, Martin referenced a recent RTÉ radio segment about social media claims related to a shooting in Carlow. “There was a researcher on identifying the blatant misinformation on truths and lies surrounding what happened in Carlow,” he said. “So I do think it’s absolutely important that government focuses on this issue.”

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Stunning breakthrough in infamous case of eight women who have been missing for 28 years raises hopes that one of Ireland’s biggest mysteries could finally be solved

One of Ireland’s biggest unsolved cases may finally find a resolution after three decades thanks to a new witness.

Between the late eighties and early nineties, eight women went missing from across the Emerald Isle – in what’s became known as Ireland’s Vanishing Triangle.

One of the women, Fiona Pender, was 25 and seven months pregnant when she went missing from her flat in Tullamore in August 1996. 

The cases have baffled police from years, but in a major update the Gardai have upgraded Fiona’s disappearance to murder.

This week they searched a new area of land at Graigue, close to the village of Killeigh, around 8km from Tullamore, County Offaly, in the middle of Ireland. 

It is understood Gardaí received new information deemed credible enough to warrant the latest search and the upgrading of the investigation. 

The search of a remote area of bogland started on Tuesday as gardaí hoped for a breakthrough in the nearly 30-year investigation.

However it quickly moved to a second location on Wednesday and continued well into the night. 

The force told The Irish Independent: ‘Gardaí investigating the disappearance and murder of Fiona Pender in August 1996 have today, Wednesday 28th May 2025, commenced another search operation on open ground at a location in Co. Laois.   

Fiona was last seen leaving home by her boyfriend John Thomson. 

In 2008 a small cross bearing her name was found along the The Slieve Bloom Way, but her body has never been recovered.

She was just one of a string of disappearances that haunted Ireland in the 1990s commonly referred to as the Vanishing Triangle, none of the women have ever been found so investigators have very little evidence to link the disappearances. 

In a major update on the case, police have upgraded Fiona’s disappearance to murder and have decided to search a new area of land at Graigue, close to the village of Killeigh, around 8 km from Tullamore, Co Offaly.

 ‘This area of land will be searched and subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations.

‘This search forms part of a sustained investigation carried out by Gardaí in Laois/ Offaly Garda Division over the last 28-years to establish Fiona’s whereabouts and to investigate the circumstances in which Fiona disappeared.’

Gardaí have since concluded the search operation in Co Offaly, however the results are not being released for operational reasons. 

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The EU plot to crush free speech in Ireland

The European Commission in Brussels threatened to bring legal proceedings against Ireland last week. The Commission is demanding Ireland impose draconian restrictions on the right of its people to speak their minds. Yes, you read that right: according to the EU, Ireland has too much free speech.

The problem, as the EU sees it, is ‘hate speech’. In 2008, the EU hammered out a ‘framework decision’ on xenophobia, which requires all member states to forbid incitement to violence or hatred on the basis of race, religion or nationality. It also criminalises Holocaust denial, or ‘trivialisation’ of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.

Ireland, however, has not complied with the 2008 diktat. It hardly needed to, since it has had hate-speech laws of its own since 1989, which nearly go as far as what Brussels is demanding anyway. These laws ban speech likely to stir up hatred on grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation or membership of the Traveller community. Last year, the Irish government even imposed a new law that increases the length of prison sentences for crimes that are proven to be motivated by ‘hatred’ on the basis of any of those characteristics.

Yet according to the EU, none of this is good enough. In a communiqué released on 7 May, the Commission gave Ireland two months to enact the EU’s provisions on incitement to violence and Holocaust denial. If Ireland fails to do this, it faces punitive fines and a date at the European Court of Justice.

This threat should worry anyone who cares about free speech and democracy. For one thing, the laws demanded by the EU are a frontal attack on vital aspects of free speech. Of course Holocaust denial is appallingly offensive. It’s also very stupid, since there is no respectable argument that the Holocaust didn’t happen. But criminalising it is not the answer. Offensiveness doesn’t justify dragging people through the courts for what they say.

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Von der Leyen’s paws are all over Ireland’s counter disinformation strategy

The government of Ireland’s 55 page counter disinformation strategy, available for free download here, is worth perusing to show how pervasive and thorough Von der Leyen’s emerging censorship web is. The first thing that critical readers might note is that there is no mention of Irish sources of disinformation, but that Russian sources of disinformation are mentioned five times.

In addition to that blatant show of Russophobia, its obsession with Moscow shows that this report is not only lop-sided, biased and partisan but that it comes up short in the empirical stakes as well. Though one might imagine that such a government funded report would give example after example of mis-information to bolster its case, that would be to mis-interpret its function, which is to put in place the censorship pillars on which not only Ireland but all of von der Leyen’s Europe will rest. Far better to close the angle, forget specific examples of mis-information and prattle on with catechisms of pseudo scientific cliches.

Thus, though there is no mention of the recurring patterns of NATO false flag operations that other SCF contributors frequently draw attention to, there are lists after lists of the pillars that must be legislated for to make not only Ireland but all of Europe safe again from the free flow of information.

The table of contents shows how the report is neatly divided into a number of sections to achieve von der Leyen’s aims. We first of all have an overview of the issue, explaining how Ireland is challenged by disinformation and how Ireland and Europe must respond, presumably by banning Russia Today, which I can now only get by using a VPN. Although an empirical or applied approach might devote a line or two to the mortal challenge Russia Today or SCF’s excellent Bruna Frascolla poses to us all, there is none of that. Instead, we must accept that Russia Today and Bruna Frascolla are coming for our jugulars and only von der Leyen and her Irish-based minions can save us from them, which is rather odd as I find the information to noise ratio much higher in them than I do in the Irish or British media.

So much for their silly overview. The next section spells out five principles through which counter-information will be fought. These essentially amount to the European Union agreeing on a narrative and that narrative being bolstered from the local level right up to von der Leyen herself. No matter whether it is Israeli war crimes in Gaza or NATO war crimes in Ukraine and Syria, all parties will spread the agreed narrative and gang up on those, who might suggest subversive counter-narratives regarding Hunter Biden’s lap top, von der Leyen’s Covid 19 vaccine profiteering and so on. Regarding Covid 19, the views of paid political and scientific hucksters will be accepted and those with alternative views will be punished on whatever pretext best suits the particular situation.

Although freedom of expression will be guaranteed, that freedom will not extend to those heretics, who question the prevailing narrative and who thereby put the entire clown show at risk. “Resilience and trust” in the powers that be will be drilled into the masses and the civil society networks they work though and “corporate accountability and regulatory enforcement” will further cement the narrative into our collective psyche. As in all quasi-military campaigns, there will be “cooperation, collaboration and coordination”, otherwise known as C3 or command, control and communications by the U.S. Military. Finally, there will be punishments as a matter of principle for dissenters and other heretics.

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Irish Government Freezes Christian Teacher’s Bank Account After He Refused to Use Gender-Neutral Pronouns

The Irish government has frozen the bank account of an Irish teacher after his continued refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns for a student at Wilson’s Hospital School. Enoch Burke, who has spent more than 500 days in jail for refusing to comply with a court order, also had his salary payments halted.

Burke attempted to withdraw funds from his Bank of Ireland account last week but found that he was unable to access his money. The account reportedly holds over €40,000—his personal savings from years of work. The Irish government and courts have frozen these funds and are set to seize them next week.

Burke was previously jailed for contempt of court after refusing to comply with an injunction barring him from entering Wilson’s Hospital School, where he had been suspended following a dispute over the use of transgender pronouns.

The freezing of his bank account marks an unprecedented escalation in the legal battle. Burke maintains that he was upholding the Christian ethos of his school and acting according to his beliefs. The Irish courts have ruled against him at multiple stages, leading to fines, jail time, and now the freezing of his assets.

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Northern Irish Pastor Prosecuted for Sermon on John 3:16

Clive Johnston, a retired pastor in Northern Ireland, is facing prosecution for allegedly violating “abortion buffer zones laws” by preaching an open-air sermon on John 3:16.

Johnston, 76, decided to preach a sermon on the famous verse last July outside of Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, according to a release from The Christian Institute, which is representing him.

The elderly minister “never mentioned” abortion specifically in his sermon, raising the question of whether “a law designed to stop abortion protests” should be “used to criminalise gospel preaching.”

The open-air Sunday sermon was delivered from the “fringes of a buffer zone on the other side of a dual carriageway” from the general hospital.

Johnston had a preliminary hearing on March 21 and expects a trial “in the next few months.”

“If convicted, the grandfather of seven, who has never been in trouble with the police, faces a criminal record and maximum fines totaling thousands of pounds,” according to The Christian Institute.

The organization noted that “it is now a criminal offence for people to be ‘impeded, recorded, influenced or to be caused harassment, alarm or distress’ within the areas” encompassed by the buffer zones.

Johnston, who previously served as president of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, is accused of “influencing” rather than impeding or harassing.

The Christian Institute added that the prosecution comes after the Green Party passed legislation three years ago creating buffer zones ranging between 100 meters and 150 meters.

The buffer zones around abortion clinics are meant to dissuade Christians from speaking to men and women entering or from encouraging them to choose life.

Simon Calvert, the deputy director of The Christian Institute, said in a statement, “We have amazing gospel freedom in this country, and we encourage Christians to use those freedoms, so that more people will hear about the love of God.”

“That’s why we’ve taken on this case,” he added. “Prosecuting someone for preaching John 3:16 near a hospital on a quiet Sunday is an outrageous restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.”

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SOUNDS FAMILIAR: Irish Prosecutors Consider Charging Conor McGregor With ‘Inciting Hate’ Right After He Announces Presidential Bid

It looks like leftists in Ireland are taking a page out of the leftist playbook in America.

No sooner had Conor McGregor announced his bid for president of Ireland, prosecutors announced that they may seek to charge him with inciting hate.

This looks like the same type of lawfare BS that we just went through for years here in the United States.

Breitbart News reports:

Irish Prosecutors Mull Charging Conor McGregor with ‘Inciting Hatred’ After Presidential Bid Announcement

In the wake of Conor McGregor announcing his intention to run for president, Irish prosecutors are reportedly considering charging the UFC legend over allegedly “inciting hatred” amid the 2023 Dublin riots.

In the wake of McGregor being invited by the Trump administration to the White House and later announcing his intentions to run for the Irish presidency, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Dublin is said to be examining social media posts from the outspoken mixed marital artist for potential criminal charges, the Irish Independent reported.

According to the paper, the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) recently sent the DPP a police file regarding an investigation into posts McGregor made in 2023. If the prosecutors take up the case, the Irish fighter could face up to seven years in prison for his social media comments under the European nation’s draconian speech restrictions.

One of the supposedly offending posts came on the night before the Dublin riots, in which McGregor said in response to Ukrainian refugees being allowed to vote in local elections: “Ireland, we are at war.”

People can see what’s going on here.

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The storm that shattered Ireland’s energy security

One of the most powerful weather events in Ireland’s history plunged the country into chaos last week. Bet you didn’t hear much about it, either, as it was hardly mentioned in the North American press. Still, the implications of its aftermath and what it reveals about the ‘green’ movement are a warning for any nation still gripped by obviously flawed climate ideology.

Storm Éowyn wreaked havoc across Ireland, with winds of over 100 mph downing power lines, flooding roads, and damaging renewable energy infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity for days in freezing winter conditions. Many people — up to 168,000 — are still without heat or light as of this writing, exposing the nation’s alarming dependence on electricity to meet basic needs.

More poignantly, the storm laid bare the vulnerabilities of renewable energy infrastructure. Thousands of wind turbines in the North Sea were forced offline because the power generated by the storm’s extreme winds risked overwhelming the electricity grid. “Constraint payments” were made to wind farm operators, compensating them for halting production — a cost ultimately passed on to consumers. This system, which guarantees profits for renewable energy companies regardless of output, highlights the flawed economic model underpinning Europe’s green energy push.

This inefficiency underscores a glaring and paradoxical tension: current energy generation systems being pushed under the banner of climate change are far from ready to meet the demands of extreme weather events, which climate activists frequently remind us are expected to increase.

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Ireland’s New Online Censorship Rules Face Showdown With X in Court

X has initiated a High Court challenge against Ireland’s media authority, Coimisiún na Meán, over a newly introduced censorship code that imposes stringent regulations on video-sharing platforms.

The contentious safety code, finalized in October, emerged following the enactment of Ireland’s Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. Rooted in the European Commission’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), the code obliges platforms under Irish jurisdiction to implement measures shielding users—particularly children—from harmful content. Platforms found non-compliant could face severe penalties, including fines of up to €20 million or 10% of annual revenue, whichever is greater.

For platforms like X,  Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and more, the code signals a dramatic shift away from self-regulation and gives Ireland’s regulators more control over online speech.

According to Coimisiún na Meán, the rules are designed to curtail the dissemination of “harmful” material. Criminal content, such as child exploitation or terrorism-related media, also falls within the prohibited categories but was already covered by previous laws.

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Irish Leader Suggests ‘Illegal Migrants’ Don’t Even Exist

The Prime Minister of Ireland suggested during an interview that illegal migrants don’t even exist, refusing to even acknowledge that the term has any meaning.

The head of the Taoiseach was asked by the host, “So do you know how many illegal migrants we have in the country at the moment?”

He responded by acting completely baffled, before suggesting that there is no such thing.

“What does the phrase illegal migrants mean? Because that’s a phrase that is used by some but that’s not a phrase in law,” said Simon Harris.

“Anybody has a right to come here and seek international protection, it is the job then of the Department of Justice to assess the validity of that application,” he added.

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