A NEW REPORT lays bare the racism experienced by people in Ireland.

The first quarterly report, from iReport.ie and ENAR Ireland, suggests that garda recruits should include ethnic minorities.

It says that two thirds of victims who reported to iReport.ie won’t report an incident to Gardaí due to a lack of confidence.

The report covers the period from 11 July 2013 to 30 September 2013 and shows that 97 incidents were reported to the iReport system during this time, with 11 reported through another organisation.

The most common forms of racist incident reported in these incidents are shouting verbal abuse and harassment. There were also significant numbers of physical assaults recorded.

Incidents occurred more frequently during the day, as this graph shows:

The report also shows:

• Black Africans are the most likely to be victims of public racism.
• Most perpetrators are male.
• Men are most likely to suffer violent attacks.
• Men and women suffer different patterns of racism.
• Disability, gender and sexual identity also have impacts
• Muslim women are targeted because of their veils.
• Assaults are most likely to be carried out on single individuals by groups
• Nearly half of reports are made by witnesses or third parties.
• A number of reports of spitting were made.
• Racist incidents are have wider impacts on  individuals, on relationships and on wider society.
• A number of incidents of secondary victimisation were recorded.
• Over 10 per cent of reported incidents were directed at Travellers.

“The fact that people are willing to report to us shows that there is a willingness for people to do something about racism” said Shane O’Curry, Director of ENAR Ireland, and one of the authors of the report. However, he noted that their findings also show that there have been failings in An Garda Síochana’s capacity to follow-up.

“This may explain people’s reluctance to report to the guards,” said O’Curry.

In this context, the announcement by Minister Shatter that An Garda Síochana is recruiting 300 new members presents an ideal opportunity to address one aspect of Garda-minority relations. If 100 of those new recruits were from Traveller, Muslim, Black, Asian, Roma and other minority backgrounds, then we would be on the road to having a police force that reflects the diversity in wider society. This would be a starting point to making all communities feel safe.

Racism reports

Since its launch on July 11th this year, iReport.ie has logged more than one incident per day.

An Asian male reported having had water thrown at him and being racially abused at midday while walking to work. A witness reported seeing a Bangladeshi man attacked by a group of white Irish men who smashed a cake on him at 9.30pm in South Dublin.

A man told ENAR:

My neighbour would not let my children play outside, she said they are black and have no business being here. She calls my 12 years old daughter a fat black bitch. She threatens to bring her family to come trash my house and set it on fire, so I am doing everything humanly possible to avoid them. We sleep with one eye open not knowing if the house will be set on fire while we are asleep as she threatens.  They say we don’t deserve to live here. We feel helpless, frustrated, abused and violated, even in our own home

A woman called Mary told them:

I am a black British woman. I was walking home in the afternoon when a car slowed down and a man started to shout violently, “Get out, go home!”  One of them pushed half of his body out of the window and continued to shout at me. I was afraid. I started to pray. It was pouring with rain and there was nobody around. It was like a dream

The full text of the report is available at: www.enarireland.org.

Read: Racist incidents up by 85 per cent in 2013 — Immigrant Council>

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