Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, to the House. She is always welcome and is a regular attendee here.

I commend Senators Mac Conghail, Zappone and their colleagues, the Independent Taoiseach nominees' group, for putting forward a motion on this important issue. I also commend them on their highly articulate speeches. It is nice to speak on a motion where we all agree with its sentiments. I also welcome the NGOs represented in the Visitors Gallery. They are the Immigrant Council of Ireland, the European Network Against Racism, Pavee Point and others. It is good to see the Seanad used in this way.

There is very little difference between the Government's counter motion and the Independent Senators' motion.

As there is often discussion to try to arrive at an agreed wording, I hope we will not get bogged down in differences. They have the same origins and both seek to ensure progress on the work we can all do together to combat racism and promote integration. They note that tackling racism and promoting diversity are not just the responsibility of the Government but of everybody in society.
Both motions quote the commitment in the programme for Government, made in 2011, to promote policies which integrate minority ethnic groups in Ireland and which promote social inclusion, equality, diversity and the participation of immigrants in the economic, social, political and cultural life of their community. Clearly, a great deal more must be done to fulfil that commitment, but the counter-motion which I second acknowledges what has been done, what is ongoing and what commitments can be made. I hope the Minister will give a commitment to return to the Seanad to report progress on the issues we have raised in this Chamber and that we will receive that report within a six month period.
In addition to a general commitment to promote integration and tackle racism and xenophobia, some specific issues were raised which I will discuss. The first is the issue of hate speech and the need to strengthen the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. I will return to that issue, but it is separate from that of hate crime. There is no doubt they can be related, but tackling hate crimes requires different legislation. I refer to racially motivated assaults and so forth. We must also examine racial profiling, an issue I raised last week in the Second Stage debate on the DNA Bill. There is a concern that the new powers and the DNA database could be used in a way that will bring about racial profiling; therefore, we must ensure there are safeguards in the Bill against this. There is also the issue of the reporting of racist incidents and the difficulty in gathering data. All of these issues are critical and require somewhat separate treatment.
The Government's motion also acknowledges the ongoing work of the Oireachtas joint committee on justice, of which Senators Martin Conway and Katherine Zappone and I are members. I am glad to point out that a key priority of our work programme for this year which we agreed at our meeting today is to examine how best to promote integration and multiculturalism and how best to combat racism. The Chairman of the committee, Deputy David Stanton, is due to receive an award on Africa Day next Saturday, a Metro Éireann award in recognition of the work of the committee. I believe it is the first time a committee of the Oireachtas has received such an award; therefore, we are very proud of it. There should be an acknowledgement of what has been done and what still needs to be done. The new citizenship ceremonies are a hugely important symbolic change that was made by the former Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, to promote integration. I have many friends who have gone through these ceremonies and they have told me how moving and powerful they are. It is a very symbolic way of welcoming new communities to Ireland and a huge improvement. Under the old system involving a declaration in the District Court, one waited until the end of the criminal law list before standing up to engage in a very technical procedure in a dusty courtroom.
The direct provision system should be mentioned. The Seanad has had debates on that issue, but clearly more must be done to ensure the integration of asylum seekers and tackle the lengthy delays where families are in direct provision accommodation for years. A cross-departmental group was agreed to by the Cabinet in February to examine the general approach to the integration of migrants. That group will also look at a strong anti-racism strategy.
To return to the specific issues of hate speech and the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, others have spoken about the flaws in that 1989 legislation. The critical issue with the legislation is that it is impossible to secure a conviction under it. The mens reatest is too high. We have seen instances of what appears to be hate speech to any objective lay person, but prosecutions have failed because they could not get over this hurdle. Clearly, the Act must be revised. The Constitutional Convention this year looked at replacing the blasphemy offence in the Constitution and the archaic, yet recent, statutory definition of blasphemy introduced by the former Minister, Mr. Dermot Ahern, in the Defamation Act, bizarrely, with a revamped Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act which would deal with hate speech on grounds that would include religion and ethnicity.
Hate crimes require different treatment and probably different legislation. I acknowledge the work and research of my colleague in the University of Limerick, Jennifer Schweppe, on this issue. There are different views on how best to tackle hate crimes such as racially motivated assaults, racially motivated public order offences, criminal damage offences and racially motivated homicides, of which there have been some in Ireland. Does one deal with them through the creation of specific new offences or through sentencing provisions providing specific grounds for aggravation? Ireland has traditionally had a discretionary based approach to sentencing. As we have not provided specific guidelines for judges in legislation, perhaps we might examine that issue. Our judges have robustly rejected any attempt to plead racist motivation as a provocation defence in homicide cases. I can think of two high profile cases in which this was attempted and I am glad the judge rejected it. However, we must look carefully at how best to tackle hate crimes. Ireland has received adverse comment internationally for not including something in its legislation to deal with this issue. The Minister of State recently signed the Idaho Declaration of Intent, on 14 May, which commits Ireland to considering legislation on hate crimes based on sexuality and gender identity, which I welcome, but we must look carefully at this issue. This is acknowledged in the Government's motion.
Non-governmental organisations, NGOs, are doing immense work on the reporting and collating of data, but we clearly require a much better system. The idea of placing all racist incidents on the PULSE system might not work, especially as some might not meet the hurdle of being a criminal offence, but we must have a system in place, whereby we can collate data for racist incidents generally. It is hugely serious if somebody is subject to racist abuse and even if it does not fall into a category of a criminal offence, we must ensure there is a way of reporting and recording it.
All Members agree on the need for a new national action plan. The action plan for the period 2005 to 2008 clearly continues to inform ongoing work at governmental level, but we require a new and revised national action plan.
To conclude on a positive note, the recent European elections resulted in a rise for those on the far right across European countries, including the UKIP in Britain and Marine Le Pen and the National Front in France, whereas Ireland has not experienced that rise of political xenophobia and racism. We might have what one guide book rather disparagingly referred to as a particularly crude and ignorant form of racism, while others have spoken eloquently about appalling incidents of racism in Ireland, but at least we do not have the type of organised racist political activity which has sadly risen to the fore in other countries.