The Coalition Against Hate Crime, a group of 23 civil society groups representing communities commonly targeted by hate crime, spoke out following the passing in the Seanad yesterday of the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Bill 2024.

Martin Collins, co-director of Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre, said: “Our communities have been victims of both hate speech and hate crime for many years. A hate crime doesn’t affect just one person, it can make an entire community feel excluded, unsafe and afraid.

“We welcome the passage of the Hate Crime Bill which sends a clear message that crime motivated by racism and hatred against Travellers, Roma, and other minorities will not be tolerated.

“Next steps need to ensure that extreme hate speech legislation is revisited and passed, as hate speech and hate crime are intrinsically linked.”

Moninne Griffith, CEO of Belong To, said: “Research published by Trinity College Dublin and Belong To, ‘Being LGBTQI+ in Ireland’, highlights the extent of the LGBTQI+ community’s lived experience of hate crime.

“One in four members of Ireland’s LGBTQI+ community have been punched, hit or physically attacked due to being LGBTQI+, and 72 per cent have experienced verbal abuse due to being LGBTQI+.

“Hate crimes are message crimes — a single act can cause a ripple of fear throughout the victim’s community. Forty-fie per cent of LGBTQI+ people in Ireland feel unsafe holding hands with a same-sex partner in public, and over half of trans and non-binary people feel unsafe expressing their gender identity in public.

“This bill is an important step towards tackling hate crime in our society and looking forward, we now need to ensure that there is effective legislation to tackle extreme hate speech.”

Brian Killoran, CEO of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, said: “Ireland is a diverse country, and those who have chosen here as their new home have a right to protection and safety in their lives.

“Encroaching anti-migrant sentiment has an impact on those communities — it dehumanises them, and belittles their enormous contribution to the economic, social and cultural life of this country.

“People who experience highly damaging and corrosive racial abuse must be protected within the law. For that reason we welcome the progression of this legislation, and impress upon our political establishment to commit to also address the hate speech elements of the legislative reform as a matter of continued urgency.”