FORMER TAOISEACH LEO Varadkar has said he regrets how he approached trying to implement hate speech legislation while in office, and that he now believes it would have been better to try to regulate social media algorithms instead.
During an interview on Virgin Media’s Ireland AM this morning, Varadkar was asked if there was anything he did not get done while in office that he looks back on and wishes he had.
Varadkar, who stepped down as Taoiseach in April 2024, said there are “loads” of things.
“There’s only so much time to do things, only so much money, and only so many people around to actually do the things you want to do,” he said.
Specifically, he said “one thing I think we got wrong” was around hate speech legislation.
While Varadkar was in office, his government tried to introduce hate speech laws which would have penalised abusive or threatening communication that targeted a person due to their race, nationality, ethnicity, gender, disability, religion or sexual orientation.
However, after significant protests, including criticism from now-trillionaire Elon Musk, the proposed law was dropped shortly after Varadkar left office.
“We were trying to bring in a law around hate speech to make it illegal for people to say certain things online that might cause people to commit crimes, or whatever. That wasn’t the right approach. The right approach is to target the algorithms,” Varadkar said today.
“There’s always been crazy people saying crazy things in the pub, in their basement, nasty things, racist things, inciting violence.
“The real problem is the algorithms. The algorithms amplify this, they actually promote anger, promote hate. It’s all about keeping you online for dwell time. That’s how these companies make money,” he said, adding that the government should have acted on this sooner.
He added, however, that it is an issue that needs to be solved on an international level.
A ban on social media companies using algorithms aimed at under-18s was proposed earlier this year in the Dáil by People Before Profit.
Put forward by TD Paul Murphy, the Online Safety (Recommender Algorithms) Bill 2026, sought to address “toxic” online content aimed at children.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil blocked the bill from progressing into law, arguing at the time that the issues it sought to address were already being dealt with by Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán.