Dr. Seamus Taylor:

Senator Ruane's question is pertinent. We need a national equality strategy that encompasses awareness-raising, training, getting staffing structures in place to reflect the diversity of the communities served throughout the criminal justice system, monitoring and reporting. It needs to be a whole-of-society, whole-of-institution approach. The criminal justice system is the far end of public policy. It mops up the mess after a lot of other stages in earlier public policy have failed.

I encourage the legislators to be creative and bold, and not to run with an unduly cautious or incremental approach. It has taken 32 years to come back to review the incitement to hatred legislation that was introduced in 1989. I would not be confident, given the history of legislation in this and other areas, that we will have a review in five years. I think this is a once in a generation opportunity to do the right thing and do it in a balanced, appropriate, proportionate way for victims, wider society and defendants.