![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2.80632160.jpg\" "\\"British")
Simon Harris said some people with extreme views online are trying to \u2018distort legitimate public debate\u2019 (PA)<\/p>\nT\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has expressed fears that Ireland will wake up one morning and \u201csomething will have gone wrong\u201d, describing toxicity in public discourse as \u201coff the Richter scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said he is no longer willing to ignore threats made to his family following several recent incidents.<\/p>\n
On Monday, reports revealed that a threat had been made against Mr Harris and his young children. It is believed this included a kidnap threat.<\/p>\n
The threat appeared on social media. Garda\u00ed arrested a woman in her 30s on Monday, but she was later released without charge. A file has been sent to the DPP.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Harris said he is no longer prepared to “gloss over” about the threats and warned that they must be taken seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp until now, the approach that I and many other public representatives have taken is to kind of take a vow of dignified silence when this happens,\u201d the T\u00e1naiste said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not willing to do that anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s becoming somewhat normalised now, and I don’t say this just directly to the media at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitician gets threat. You guys [the media] write about it. Highlight it.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of days later, the world moves on and off we go again.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouple of months later, another threat comes. It’s getting worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not about protest or robust debate. I love robust debate; it\u2019s not about that at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you know, when you take out your phone, you see a threat against your child. that’s something nobody should have to experience. Nobody should have to tolerate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not something I’m willing to just gloss over. I’m not willing to normalise it and say, \u2018Just because I am in public life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simon Harris said some people with extreme views online are trying to \u2018distort legitimate public debate\u2019 (PA)<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste said people across both Government and opposition have received threats, and he would feel the same regardless of who was targeted.<\/p>\n
Mr Harris also raised concerns about the term \u201conline threat,\u201d arguing that it makes no difference whether threats occur online or in person \u2014 both must be taken seriously.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cYou cannot threaten to hurt or harm or kill or kidnap or abduct or grab anybody. Simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do genuinely believe, and there’s no easy answers to any of this, but I do genuinely believe the toxicity in public discourse and online is completely it’s gone completely off the Richter scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m speaking out of this. I didn’t intend it, but I am actually on behalf of everybody in public life, Government, opposition, backbench TDs, backbench senators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fear one day we’re going to wake up in this country and something would have gone wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has to be taken seriously. It has to be taken extraordinarily seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste added that \u201cwe have 20th-century law enforcement in the 21st-century\u201d and said policymakers must ensure stronger regulation of social media.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, meanwhile, said there is a \u201ccoarseness in public discourse that is very worrying,\u201d arguing that the level of tolerance for online debate has become \u201climiting and restrictive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also expressed concern about migration debates online, calling them \u201cappalling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt creates an atmosphere which then can lead to assault and to violence against innocent people, false narratives and so forth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an onus on all of us, collectively, to resist this and to challenge it. And you know, the government will be robust on this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government will be robust on this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste has previously faced several online and in-person threats and protests. Protesters once gathered outside his Wicklow home.<\/p>\n
In June 2024, a bomb threat against the T\u00e1naiste\u2019s home was later confirmed as a hoax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has expressed fears that Ireland will wake up one morning and \u201csomething will have gone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,31805,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,9168,44,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-42178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-harris","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-place-republic-of-ireland","23":"tag-simon-harris","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}