Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Are hate speech laws fundamental to addressing the institutional racism that seems to be at play in the educational system and the health system? Many people made presentations to the committee. There is, at best, inertia. There is indifference and then there is the institutionalised racism. I refer to the lack of progress and the lack of good initiatives, and the initiatives that have not had the impact that they were meant to have. Repeatedly, for example, we see the local authorities not spending their budgets or the funding allocated to them. In employment, we see where employers, both in the State sector and in the private sector, routinely discriminate against Travellers in terms of access to jobs. In offering rental accommodation, landlords also discriminate against Travellers. It is right across the system. Mr. McDonagh would seem to be giving the committee a strong message that it is most important that there would be strong hate speech laws that can underpin progress not only in education but across all the other areas as well.