Ireland faces institutional racism claims

Ireland’s failure to gather statistics on hate crime and discrimination against Muslims amounts to institutional racism, according to a pioneering research project which will be unveiled at University College Cork on Saturday.

The failure, in particular, by the gardaí to use its Pulse electronic system to monitor crimes against ethic and religious minorities facilitates Islamophobia in Ireland, argues James Carr of University of Limerick.

He said: “The Garda Pulse system still does not capture if religion was an aggravating factor in a crime; thus, we cannot tell the extent of incidents Islamophobic behaviour from Garda recorded crime statistics.”