Gardaí expect rise in reports of racist incidents

CLOSE to 200 racially motivated incidents have been reported to the Gardaí over the last two years.

Gardaí involved in tracking racist incidents and attacks expect a significant increase this year because they believe such attacks were still going unreported to the end of last year.

Provisional figures for 2003, released following a Dáil question from Labour's justice spokesman Joe Costello, show there were 68 reported incidents in 2003, more than half of them in the Dublin Metropolitan Region.