Minister to cut proposed fines for blasphemy to €25,000

MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern is to cut proposed fines for blasphemy from €100,000 to €25,000, under changes to be made to the Defamation Act next week. Mr Ahern said the legislation, which passed its committee stage in the Dáil yesterday, has been drafted to “make it virtually impossible to get a successful prosecution [for blasphemy] out of it”. A blasphemy prosecution has not been won for a century, while powers already in force under the 1961 Defamation Act have never been used.

The Government is currently modernising Ireland’s defamation laws, which passed its committee stage in the Dáil last evening. Under Article 40 of the Constitution, “the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter” is a criminal offence.

Mr Ahern insists blasphemy must remain a crime, unless the reference to it in the Constitution is removed. “It is already there in the 1961 Act, and it is in the Constitution and we have to comply with the Constitution. You are in derogation of your duty if you ignore the Constitution,” he told Opposition TDs. [irishtimes.com] Read more