Hate crimes up 84% as Gardaí launch new online reporting tool

Between January and June 2021, some 238 hate crimes and hate incidents were reported. File photo: iStock

Incidences of hate crime have increased by an astonishing 84% in just 12 months, the gardaí have said.

At the launch of a new online hate crime reporting tool, the gardaí provided a “snapshot” of the increase in hate crimes, and lesser hate ‘incidents’, in the six months between January and June 2021.

In that time some 238 hate crimes and hate incidents were reported, compared with just 129 over the same period 12 months previous in 2020.

Addressing the launch Assistant Commissioner Paula Hilman said that the incidents do not represent just reports of crime, but events which have fulfilled the threshold to represent a crime after investigation by the Garda National Diversity and Integration Unit.

Meanwhile, Paula Fagan, chief executive of LBGT Ireland and a member of the Garda national Diversity Forum, said that in her opinion hate crimes are probably underreported in an Irish context.

“I would certainly say that it is double,” she said, adding that in her experience many people are willing to report such a crime to her own organisation, but not to the gardaí.

As of Wednesday, the force’s new online hate crime reporting tool has gone live via the Garda website, with the view that people who do not wish to report such a crime in person can take advantage of the anonymous nature of the tool.

The reporting portal is not to be used for emergencies, however, gardaí said.

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Every incident reported via the portal will be investigated individually by the GNDIU, the launch heard.

As regards why the statistics have increased to such an extent within the last year, Asst Commr Hilman said that she does not believe the pandemic has been a factor in that trend.

“No, that would not be my initial analysis,” she said, adding that by the end of the year An Garda Siochana hopes to be in a position to compare incidents of hate crime by jurisdiction, to see “if there are trends in certain areas or against certain groups with protective characteristics”.

The launch heard from advocate and ambassador for Sport Against Racism Ireland Abood Al Jumaili, who came to Ireland in 2008 as a refugee.

Mr Al Jumaili, who described himself as “a law graduate and GAA player”, said he had experienced hate crime personally but had not reported it to the gardaí “as I did not feel comfortable in doing so”.

“I came to the realisation that a victim of hate crime should not be embarrassed in reporting hate crime, which entails a poisonous and ignorant behaviour,” he said.

He described the new portal as a “door which has been made for victims who do not feel comfortable walking into a Garda station and reporting the crime”.