Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to make a contribution to the debate today. I am very privileged to represent an incredibly diverse constituency. I genuinely believe the diversity we have in Fingal is a massive strength for my area and for our communities.

I encourage the Minister to engage with her Government colleagues and remind them of the leadership role they have and must embrace within our constituency. There was a house fire in my area recently. I will not identify where it was. A woman and her young family were traumatised by the destruction of their home. The site was still warm with smoke still rising from it when some of the Minister's Government colleagues went on the airwaves to speculate about the fire and whether there was a racial element to it. There was not. They would have found that out if instead of picking up the telephone to one of those shock-jock types, they had actually bothered to go and talk to the family. They would have known that was just a horrible accident that left a family traumatised. Then, piled on top of that was this speculation and rhetoric. It really did not help. That fire was an accident. The message people got from the Minister's colleagues was no accident, however, and they heard it loud and clear. They should have gone to that site and talked to the people in the community. I am really hopeful that as we go through the debate on this legislation we will have a mature discussion, just as we did with the eighth amendment when everybody stood in this Chamber and said we must have a respectful debate. Many people changed their minds and learned because we were able to have a respectful debate and a good discussion. There were people who tried to interrupt it. The same people will probably try to interrupt this but we need to be absolutely steadfast. We must deal with facts. We must be mature and responsible but must also acknowledge the leadership role we as politicians must have.

I want to use the remainder of my time to pay tribute to those in my community who work really hard to combat racism, hatred, homophobia and misinformation, because that is a huge part of it. It is fuelling much of what we see. The hatred that we see online is fuelled by misinformation and people deliberately misrepresenting the facts. Sometimes, the message is picked up and repeated by politicians. That has to stop. We need to be sure of our sources but we also need to know that when we speak, we have a responsibility to all of the people in our communities.

I want to recognise in particular the work of Fingal Communities Against Racism. I cannot name everyone but they are doing fantastic work. I want to say a special word of thanks to Dr. Lucy Michael for her work, not just with Fingal Communities Against Racism but also in challenging racism and championing equality, diversity and inclusion. We need to have that balance as we go through the debate on this legislation. It is not just about challenging the racism, homophobia, hate speech and disgusting vile language; it is also about presenting that positive message.

Fingal Communities Against Racism is a group of people doing what we can to help in our area. Sometimes, that means gathering up clothes and supplies to bring to people who are living in direct provision centres that are inhumane, which I think is the kindest way I can put it. Sometimes, it is about helping out with a language resource or some supports for new members of our community. There is always something to be done. I will be honest; it is usually not me doing it. It is other people. However, I try to do a bit if I can. I encourage the four other Deputies in my constituency to get involved. I am sure they are aware of the work Fingal Communities Against Racism does. It would be great to see them there. I remind them again of the leadership role they have. They need to take that seriously. It needs to inform their work and also their activism. If they had been in touch with the people in Fingal Communities Against Racism, they would not have been as quick to contact the shock-jock. They would not have been as quick to judgment and would not have caused all of the hurt that could have been avoided within my community.

I also want to touch briefly on the racism experienced by Travellers in this State. It truly is the last acceptable form of racism in our discourse, so much so that in this Chamber in the Dáil and in the Seanad, several of the Minister's Government colleagues and others have had to apologise publicly for their use of racist language with regard to Travellers. Indeed, they have celebrated publicly their opposition to Traveller housing. It is absolutely disgusting. It is good that they have apologised for it, but it would be better if we could say with certainty that it will not happen again.

Travellers in this State have the lowest levels of life expectancy and the highest rates of death by suicide compared with the general population. If that does not scream at us that we have a problem, I do not know what will. I hope that this legislation will go some way towards combating the racism experienced by Irish Travellers. There is so much for our Traveller friends to be proud of. My colleague, an Teachta Gould, mentioned the yellow flag scheme. Some of the schools in my area have the flag, including St. Oliver Plunkett's National School in Balrothery. It is a great example of positive work being done. We have said loads of times that people are not born racist; they are taught racism. They hear racism.

When they hear it from people who are here, who are elected, that has an even stronger message. That is why we need to be really careful. There is so much good work being done yet a recent survey tells us that 55% of people would not want Travellers living in their community while 85% would not have a Traveller as a friend. When we talk about populism and populist language, those on the Government benches need to check themselves. That is the language they use. They are very quick to say this is populist and that is populist. They should look at those statistics and see what they are doing. Leadership is what they should be providing. It takes a bit of bravery to do it, absolutely, but it is the right thing to do and it should be done.

Rose Marie Maughan, a very well known human rights activist, says in a tweet about this legislation: "Lets hope it will be a law that will help everyone from hate crimes including Irish Travellers." I very much echo that sentiment.

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