Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

472. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if it is the intention of the Government to formally adopt and apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of anti-Semitism which has been supported by many governments worldwide and the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament. [5659/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Ireland strongly condemns all forms of racism, xenophobia and intolerance.

Since 2011, Ireland has been a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organisation that brings together governments and experts to share best practice and promote historically informed policy-making. Ireland was supportive of the adoption by IHRA of the non-legally binding Working Definition of Antisemitism. However, this support was conveyed on the basis that while Ireland was supportive of the definition we did not consider the illustrative examples that followed to be an integral part of the definition.

As the Deputy may be aware, an Taoiseach was one of some 15 Heads of State and Government to speak at the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance on 13 October 2021. The Government made a number of pledges which reinforce the Government's commitment to implementing the forthcoming anti-racism strategy, the proposed hate crime legislation; and to ongoing reform of the school curriculum to better address racism. The Deputy may wish to note that the General Scheme of the proposed Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021 brought forward by my colleague the Minister for Justice makes provision for an offence where a person publicly condones, denies or grossly trivialises any act falling within the definition of a “genocide” in Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention).

In my own Department, the National Action Plan Against Racism for Ireland will include an action programme which identifies priority issues to be addressed, and with measures that strengthen the Government’s approach to combating racism, building on the actions currently included in the Migrant Integration Strategy, and the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy, preventing antisemitism and other forms of racism.

My Department remains committed to Holocaust remembrance and to combatting antisemitism. On 30 January 2022, I was privileged to participate in the National Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration, organised under the auspices of Holocaust Education Trust, and to hear the testimonies of those who had survived the horrors of the Holocaust. My Department provides annual funding to support this event, which commemorates the lives of those persecuted during the Holocaust.