€25,000 fine for blasphemy in Ireland
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.
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