Eight racist incidents reported each week

Racist incidents are being reported at a rate of eight per week, according to a new survey by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, which claimed there has been a surge in cases this summer.

The ICI said it had responded to 120 racist incidents in the past 12 months and warned that it had dealt with 52 reports in June and July alone.

That is compared to just three cases in the same two month period last year, and the ICI also warned that there has been a rise in online racist incidents, while, overall, more than one in 10 cases of alleged racism reported to the ICI in the past year involved physical violence against the victim.