New laws and tougher sentencing called for to combat hate crime

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.

The all-Ireland Hate Crime Symposium took place at the University of Limerick and heard from speakers on hate crime carried out against people with disabilities, foreign nationals, and Travellers, among other groups.

Jennifer Schweppe, the co-director of the conference, and the head of the University of Limerick’s school of law, said: “Hate crime is an enormous problem, under-reporting is an enormous problem.”