Councillor in call for law against ‘hate crime’

A MOTION from Cllr Mick Roche calling for hate crime legislation to be enacted was supported.

Cllr Roche sought for the council to call on the Justice Minister to develop mechanisms to gather and publish data on the prosecution of discriminatory crime and to introduce bespoke hate crime legislation. ‘Taking into account that there is now way of recording that an offender has committed a hate crime in our existing legislative jurisdiction or there is no certainty that a hate motivation crime will be presented in court.’

Cllr Roche said Ireland has some of the highest incidences of hate crime in Europe, especially against African people and transgender people.