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The Irish Network Against Racism (INAR) today launched the Report of its 2021 findings from the iReport.ie racist incident reporting system. The total number of incidents reaching 404, the system also recorded 154 Criminal incidents, including racist assaults and a record 90 reports of illegal discrimination. There were fewer overall reports than in 2020, with the drop this period being attributable to the anomalous lockdown-related spike in reports of online incidents in the previous period. In 2021, the proportion of crimes reported to Gardai almost halved, reflecting a deteriorating level of confidence in An Garda Siochana among minorities.

INAR Peer Reviewer Siphiwe Moyo said: “2021 has seen a continued worsening of off-line experiences for minorities in Ireland. Taken with the disappointing trend in the two previous years, and the deterioration in confidence in Gardai, the task for us is very clear: we must redouble our efforts to tackle racism including in our institutional responses to racism” she said ” efforts to change institutional practice have clearly still not borne fruit as the report findings show. Confidence in Gardai has dropped. This may be explained in part by ongoing experiences of minorities making complaints about repeat harassment getting inappropriate responses from Gardai, and in part by ongoing instances of racial profiling.”

Claudia Hoareau, Chair of INAR Board added : “What all minorities need in order to be able to live as equals, is for our government and institutions to bring their weight to tackle racism and discrimination, and to combat the conditions which foster racism and discrimination. We have been promised Hate Crime legislation this year, just as we were last year and the year before” she said “ So we need that urgently. As we report on the implementation of our UN CERD Concluding Observations for Ireland, we need to follow-through on CERD’s recommendations for outlawing racial profiling, Hate Crime Legislation, as well as for a meaningful National Action Plan Against Racism (NAPAR). This requires taking bold measures for eliminating structural, institutional and cultural racism in our institutions and all areas of life. For us to be able to make these aspirations real, we need focus, ample resourcing and real leadership from our government, and we need it now”.

Full Media Release below:

iReport Media Release – March 2022