Despite the noticeable surge in hate crimes targeted at minority groups over recent years, the existing laws have seen relatively few prosecutions. Since 2018, only 16 cases have been finalised in the District Court under the 1989 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act. Moreover, no case has been resolved under these laws in the current year.
Data obtained through Freedom of Information laws reveal that every prosecution was associated with “actions likely to provoke hatred”. There have been no legal actions against the act’s second section, which makes illegal the “creation and possession of items inciting hatred”.
In recent years, an upsurge in violence and racist speeches directed at immigrants, especially asylum seekers marking record arrivals, has been observed by law enforcement and civil society groups since 2022.
It is becoming more evident that applying the 1989 law is difficult due to the latest figures. Legal professionals and law enforcement have consistently expressed that the act is overly wide-ranging, outdated, and challenging to enforce. This triggered the Government to present a new draft bill, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, aimed to simplify prosecution processes for hate speech, including online offenses.
However, amid heavy criticism from Government and Opposition Members of Parliament, Justice Minister Helen McEntee confirmed she wouldn’t advance certain areas of the Bill that pertain to hate speech legislation. A revised version of the Bill, requiring stricter punishment for hate-motivated crimes such as racist attacks, will continue.
Only two of the 16 individuals charged with hate offenses since 2018 were sentenced to prison by the District Court. Included in these sentences was a 155-day jail term allocated in 2020. Some received fines, one faced probation without a criminal conviction, while others saw their cases dismissed by a judge or escalated to a Circuit Criminal Court jury trial. The outcomes of these trials are not specified in the data.
While the conviction rate for provoking hatred is consistently low, it is still a marginal increase on past years. From the implementation of the law in 1989 until 2017, only five convictions were documented under the act.
According to data from An Garda Síochána, there was a surge of hate crimes and associated instances by 12% in 2023, totalling 651 occurrences, which is an increase of 33% since 2021. Racist motives were identified in 38% of cases from the previous year while xenophobia and homophobia were the inciters in 19% and 17% of the incidents respectively.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a group dedicated to countering extremism, published a report this week cataloguing 61 episodes of racial intimidation/violence against minorities throughout a four-month timespan this year. These instances chiefly entailed direct racist threats or intimidation targeted at the victims, with a third involving acts of physical aggression against individuals or damages inflicted on their possessions.
Surprisingly, the harassers filmed 70% of these occurrences and disseminated the footage on the internet, occasionally garnering substantial attention in extreme right-wing circles.