Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this really important issue. I did want the opportunity to speak to it myself. In my follow-up at the end, I will come back to some of the recent incidents. In the last 12 months, however, we have seen the largest humanitarian effort made in the history of the State. Since the start of last year, more than 85,000 people have arrived in Ireland fleeing war and persecution. In these difficult circumstances, Ireland has provided shelter and security. This is something we can be proud of as a country. However, there is clear evidence that racism exists in our country and we know there are some people who feel its impacts in their day-to-day lives. The Government has responded to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis in several ways in the past year. Several existing programmes also empower communities by funding anti-racism and integration activities throughout the State.

It is important to say that the response to racism is a State-wide and country-wide response. No one Department will have the monopoly in terms of this response. Regarding the actions taking place within my Department, we have a range of funding streams in place to support locally-organised diversity and equality projects. We have the asylum, migration and integration fund, the communities integration fund, the national integration fund and the European Social Fund, ESF. In more specific areas, we provide funding to gender equality groups and to Traveller and Roma organisations to organise local diversity and quality events. There is, therefore, a wide range of funding mechanisms to support primarily local responses, recognising that it is also often these local conversations that are the most effective in tackling racism.

Turning to the Senator's question on the national action plan, in 2020 the Government established the independent anti-racism committee with a view to strengthening the Government's approach to combating individual and institutional racism, and build on existing strategies. This was part of Ireland's response to a UN global call to tackle racism. Extensive public engagement and consultation was undertaken by the anti-racism committee across 2021 and 2022. The committee has submitted its final report to my Department and I and the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, intend to bring the national action plan against racism to Cabinet imminently. Our plan, and I spoke about this at the UN last week, is to launch it in early March. This is an important step. It will be our first detailed national action plan against racism since 2008. This has been a gap in our State's response to the issue of racism, one that will be filled rapidly.

On some other responses on the criminal law side, which I think are also important, as the Senator knows the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 is before the Oireachtas. It will update laws on criminalising hate speech and legislate against hate crimes for the first time in Irish law. Although hate speech is currently an offence, the legislation is complex and has not delivered in a meaningful way. The new legislation will enable prosecution of offences which are motivated by prejudice against protected characteristics, including race, nationality or ethnic origin. Obviously, we know that much of the recent rhetoric has been focused on migrants. We do have a migrant integration strategy and this works to promote social cohesion across the State. There are mechanisms within it for the State, Government Departments and State agencies to support migrants and their wider integration in society.

As I said earlier, financial supports are important, but it is supporting communities and on-the-ground engagement with people who may have heard incorrect rumours and lies and demonstrating to them that they are falsehoods that is often the most effective way to tackle some of the incidents we have seen recently.