Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Before I launch into my piece, I want to acknowledge Noel Murphy, who is in the Gallery. I believe he will be going on his merry way to retirement and I want to wish him the very best of luck. I thank him for everything on behalf of the Labour Party. I wish him the best of luck and I thank him for everything he has done in here. I hope he has a wonderful time and that he has lots of exciting plans.

Yesterday, the Irish Council for International Students, ICOS, launched their report of international students' experience of racism. We all would have known that they probably experienced racism but when I read the figures, I was really surprised. Some 63% of students who participated in the research and who filled out the survey stated they had experienced or had witnessed racism in Ireland. The figure of 63% is alarmingly high, when we think of how many international students we have. This survey covers not just our traditional universities and our third level but also people who are here in English language schools. As we know, they are in very high numbers. Of that 63%, it is alarming that only 10% of international students who have been affected by racism reported it to the authorities. We know there are a number of reasons for that, including possibly the countries that those students may have come from, where there may be a lot of distrust of the authorities. However, what was borne out in this research was that a huge number of people did not even know how to report to the authorities or, through the Chinese whispers of the international student grouping, they were told not to bother, there is nothing the authorities can do and it would be a waste of their time.

At the launch yesterday, ICOS, and a number of speakers spoke about iReport. Many of us here will know what iReport is. We may have seen an advertisement or two on buses. It is where you can report incidences of racism. However, I was astonished by how many people in the room yesterday, such as staff from offices, or indeed members themselves, who have never even heard of iReport. That is the national gathering body for reports of racism in Ireland. When we think about how few of us even know about it, it is very unreasonable then to expect international students to know how to go to it or how to report on that. I therefore want to put on the record that ireport.ieis where people can go to report racism. This is not just for international students but for any person who has either witnessed it or experienced it. It is really important for data gathering that people know what that is.I will circulate this report to every Member later on today if that is permissible. It includes a list of recommendations that the Government can take, as well as higher education institutions themselves, in terms of enhanced data collection reporting, recording of hate crimes, the passing of hate crime legislation and cultural awareness training for public servants. There are eight action plans here. I will circulate this around to all Members later today but one should use ireport.ie to report any incidents of racism.