Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, acknowledge Senator Mooney's personal statement earlier. He showed great courage, and long may that continue in the House.

I also welcome the Minister of State here again. I have a huge amount of respect for her and am a great admirer. However, I cannot help but think - not of her personally - that her speech was completely kidnapped by the Department. It has been completely drowned in sentiment, though not sentiment that she expressed, in fairness. She stated: "Ireland has become a much more diverse society and, I believe, has remained for the most part a nation of welcome. That is reflected in a relatively low level of reported racist crime." This was accompanied by figures. Everyone in this House has questioned the veracity of those figures. I am not being discourteous to the Minister of State because I have great admiration for her. However, I have issues with statements she made about certain measures.

I know the Minister of State cannot commit to the timeframe, but the Government took the sense of our motion and cut and pasted it into its motion. We are waiting for some kind of commitment, particularly on the two basic issues of data collection and legislation. First, we have all accepted the motion. I would love the Government to give a commitment today to establish a centralised partnership across NGOs and Government regarding data collection, once and for all, and we should also be given a timeframe.

Second, I accept that there might be some technicalities associated with legislation. The Minister of State spoke about defining common offences of a racist or xenophobic nature as specific offences. Clearly, there was no provision for the racial motivation of a crime to be considered as an aggravating circumstance during sentencing in a trial. That is a fact. We must depend on some judges having empathy towards the case. We need to look at the matter. Racism needs to be explicitly recognised as a crime.

I accept the interjection made by Senator Bacik on race crime versus race speech. The challenge is to develop a legislative framework to effectively deal with issues experienced on the ground. There was an infamous incident whereby Andy Cole travelled to Ireland and England, where he was racially abused by two Irishmen. If he had travelled to Ireland and it had happened the other way around there would have been no arrest or imprisonment. That is just the basic difference between Irish and UK legislation. There is an urgency about this matter, but I did not hear this in the cold amendment and the fact that there is no timeframe. Terms such as "whatever measures" were used, and that caveat appeared throughout the speech. Again, I qualify that these were not the Minister of State's words. I understand that she has empathy towards the issue and appreciated the wonderful story about her daughter.

Is the Government committing to anything more than is already happening? Are we conflating the issues of integration and racism? They are completely different issues, although probably not within a holistic approach. The Government must try to achieve some modest but crucial developments in two ways. The first is to do with data collection, which is a no-brainer. Second, we need a commitment to review the legislation. That is what we are looking for. I accept the issues with regard to polls. If I were to press for a vote then I would have to accept that if our motion was rejected the Government would have to come back and address the matter.

I am disappointed with the Department's lack of urgency and clarity in what it considers to be elemental in combatting racism. How can one begin to implement a policy without centralised data collection? How can one do so without a centralised understanding of qualitative and quantitative levels?

In terms of legislation, we need clear definitions of race crime and racial hatred. The Public Order Act 1986 in the UK, which preceded the 1989 Act in Ireland, was able to provide both definitions. We should have a debate on the matter within this timeframe. There was no sense of urgency and no commitment given to achieve that goal in the Minister of State's speech, which, in fairness, was not drafted by her.