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

I again congratulate the Deputy on his stunning by-election victory in Dublin Fingal. Ireland's cross-departmental delegation is appearing before the UN Committee responsible for monitoring the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The delegation is headed by the Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, Deputy Stanton, and will be answering questions on our combined fifth to ninth reports, prepared and submitted under the convention. These reports cover the period from 2011 onwards.

Notwithstanding some of the events of recent weeks, I am proud to lead the Government that has led the way on issues of integration, immigration and migration. Since the party I lead came to office, 120,000 people have been made Irish citizens. I am delighted that they are part of our family. We have accepted thousands of refugees from all over the world when other countries refused to do so. We sent our navy to the Mediterranean to help rescue migrants and disrupt human trafficking. We have brought in the new McMahon standards relating to direct provision. These ensure that the quality of accommodation has improved. We have also recognised Traveller ethnicity for the first time, something that was resisted for a long time by previous Governments. We have published and implemented the national migrant integration strategy as well as a national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy. In addition, we have the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which was established by the previous Government of Fine Gael and Labour.

On hate crimes, as the Deputy pointed out, our Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act is out of date. The Act dates from 1989 and needs to be updated. Work in that regard is already under way. I am not sure of the current status of this work but the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, launched a public consultation on it a few weeks ago. Should this Dáil be here in the new year, and I am sure it will be, I would hope we can make progress in updating that legislation.

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