Increase in racist hate speech in past two years, say Irish Network Against Racism

There has been a significant rise in racist hate speech, hate crime and discriminatory incidents over the past two years, according to the Irish Network Against Racism (INAR).

There were 530 reports of racist incidents in 2019, an increase of 140 on 2018 figures.

112 were criminal offences, while there were 174 reports of hate speech, 50 racist assaults and 92 repeated harassment cases.

The offences were recorded on the network's racist incident reporting system - iReport.ie.

"Our reports, once again point to a need for serious leadership and concerted efforts at the highest level in combating all forms of racism, which are inter-related," said Shane OCurry, Director of INAR.

He added: "The UN CERD’s Concluding Observations for Ireland, published in December 2019, make it clear; Ireland must develop a National Action Plan Against Racism, enact hate crime legislation, outlaw racial profiling, bring forward measures to combat hate speech, and follow recommendations for eliminating structural, institutional and cultural racism.

"The good news about this bad news is that we know what we have to do: we need our government provide leadership on racism."