Fitzgerald to continue engagement on hate crime legislation

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has said she will engage further with TDs proposing legislation to establish hate crime as a specific and punishable crime.

Ms Fitzgerald was quizzed in the Dáil yesterday by Fine Gael colleague Noel Rock.

She insisted that there “are mechanisms in place to deal with hate motivated crime” within “wider criminal law”, pointing out that Irish courts will consider evidence of a crime being motivated by hate or prejudice as an aggravating factor at sentencing.

But she also referred back to the Criminal Justice (Aggravation by Prejudice) Bill which was introduced by Fianna Fáil TDs Fiona O’Loughlin and Margaret Murphy O’Mahony last year.

The bill’s second stage debate took place last October.

Ms Fitzgerald said: “While there was support for the principle of the Bill, there were a number of concerns raised in respect of the approach proposed and the Deputies sponsoring the Bill undertook to further engage in respect of the proposals therein.

“I recently received further correspondence from Deputy O’Loughlin in respect of that Bill and I intend to further engage with the Deputies in relation to their proposals.”