Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On Monday I had the opportunity to meet groups representing the LGBT community to mark the beginning of Pride week. Hate crime was one of the issues they raised with me. I am not sure what the situation is when it comes to Garda monitoring of statistics, but I will have it checked and reply to the Deputy by way of correspondence. The issue of hate crime is being examined by the Department of Justice and Equality. It is difficult to get it right because, while hate, anger and many other things may be sins, they are not crimes per se. Perhaps a way by which we might deal with it is that rather than trying to make it a crime, we do something as part of sentencing. For example, if somebody was to commit an assault or carry out a murder and was motivated by hatred on particular grounds, it would result in a stiffer sentence, rather than making the emotion or feeling of hate a crime which I think would be hard to do.

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