We the Board of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, Ireland’s leading penal reform NGO, write to express our serious and collective concern in respect to s.55 Charities Act 2009.

A conference on hate crime yesterday heard that the absence of legislation had created "permission to hate" and that hate-motivated crimes should attract harsher penalties.

An Irish academic has been honoured by the Queen for radical reform of UK law to tackle institutional racism.