Professor Jennifer Schweppe:

That will very much depend on the response Travellers get when they walk into a Garda station. Mr. Joyce has to hand all of the numbers from our research. A significant proportion of victims of crime, almost half of the survey respondents, had been the victim of a crime. This is a very high rate of victimisation in the community. A relatively high number of these reported but their experiences were not as good as that of the general population when they report a crime. I honestly cannot see a reason the response of a garda would be to take a person seriously, bring them in and sit them down if it is a hate crime but not if it is an assault, domestic violence or sexual violence that is being reported. These are all crimes the people who spoke to us said they had walked into a Garda station to report but were not taken seriously.

I do not see how the presence of hate crime legislation would make the blindest bit of difference to Garda responses. It will create an expectation in the community that, when a hate crime is recorded, it will be taken seriously, will be responded to and will be investigated. I do not know whether the presence of legislation on the Statute Book has ever had an instantaneous response. The former Minister of State at the Department of Justice might correct me. I do not think any legislation has had an instantaneous Garda response of suddenly taking something seriously. We are very knowledgeable about the hate crime legislation in the European Centre for the Study of Hate. We have worked on evidencing the need for hate crime legislation as well as implementation measures.

It will create a huge expectation on the part of the community. I do not know whether that expectation will be met. On the basis of the data we have, however, it will not be.