{"id":484971,"date":"2026-05-14T21:37:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484971\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:37:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:37:55","slug":"minister-dodges-all-10-questions-on-migrant-crime-data-says-td","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484971\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister dodges all 10 questions on migrant crime data, says TD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Independent TD Carol Nolan has accused the Minister for Justice of evading every substantive question she tabled on the April 2025 report An Evidence Review on Ethnic Monitoring in the Criminal Justice System.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deputy Nolan submitted ten detailed parliamentary questions seeking an update on implementation of the report\u2019s insights, publication of disaggregated crime, arrest, and imprisonment statistics by ethnicity and country of origin, steps to address over-representation of foreign nationals and non-Irish ethnic groups in prisons and probation, and a commitment to transparent public debate on links between mass immigration and crime rates.<\/p>\n

In a single consolidated written reply, Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan confirmed that the report was commissioned by the Department in 2022 and \u201cdoes not contain recommendations but rather provides learnings from other jurisdictions\u201d;<\/p>\n

The minister further noted that \u201cthese learnings\u201d \u201cwill be reviewed in the context of a planned introduction of a common identification number for individuals within the criminal justice system, as committed to in the Programme for Government.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, no timeline was provided as to when this might happen.<\/p>\n

The reply also stated that \u201cthe publication of disaggregated crime statistics is something that I support as an important contribution to our understanding of crime and to the development of policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It did so without committing to ethnicity, nationality, or migrant-status breakdowns or addressing the report\u2019s highlighted findings on comparator countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England & Wales):<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Minister\u2019s reply makes no reference to the report\u2019s documented insights that minority ethnic and migrant groups are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice systems of those jurisdictions, that the absence of ethnic monitoring can allow agencies to escape accountability for disparities,\u201d Deputy Nolan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Minister has effectively kicked the can down the road, yet again, while demonstrating his unwillingness to move beyond words into action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis Department commissioned this report three years ago. It was published over a year ago. Yet today we have no timeline for publishing ethnicity or country-of-origin crime data, no commitment to address the over-representation already evident in Irish prisons from prior studies, and no willingness to facilitate the transparent public debate the Irish people deserve on the impact of mass immigration on community safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClaiming the report contains \u2018no recommendations\u2019 while offering only a future common ID number with zero delivery date is simply not good enough. The public has a right to evidence-based policy, not endless reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will continue to demand full implementation of ethnic monitoring and the immediate publication of disaggregated statistics so that we can have a factual and evidence based conversation about crime, integration, and immigration policy,\u201d concluded Deputy Nolan.<\/p>\n

Last December, the Women\u2019s Coalition on Immigration published forward a new report\u00a0warning of what it has described as changing patterns of sexual violence in Europe and urgent policy gaps in Ireland.<\/p>\n

The Coalition called on the Government\u00a0 immediately release all criminal statistics for sexual offences in this country disaggregated by country of origin and ethnicity \u201cso that policy can be formulated on fact, not on wishful thinking or ideology\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 20-page thematic report entitled\u00a0\u201cThrough a Safeguarding lens, darkly: a thematic report into the International Protection Provision in Ireland,\u201d\u00a0compares official data collated by domestic police forces and government departments of six European countries. The organisation said at the launch that the data shows an \u201coverrepresentation of non-national men in sexual offence statistics, to argue that current policies are putting women and children at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group said it had identified \u201csignificant\u201d shifts in the nature of sexual violence against Europe, highlighting \u201cemergent trends in opportunistic street attacks and group-based sexual assaults.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na have\u00a0told Extra.ie<\/a>\u00a0that recording the ethnicity of suspects would assist with research-informed policy decisions.<\/p>\n

The justice spokesman said: \u2018Using the PPSN would enable the Central Statistics Office, to gather anonymised, disaggregated information on those interacting with the justice system. This would provide an invaluable source of data for research-informed policy decisions, including the production of anonymised statistics on special characteristics, including, for example ethnicity.\u2019<\/p>\n

He added: \u2018Data can assist in identifying emerging trends and patterns that the criminal justice sector may need to respond to. Sharing a common identification number across the criminal justice sector would facilitate the accurate exchange of information, which could further enhance its ability to identify these emerging trends and patterns.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Independent TD Carol Nolan has accused the Minister for Justice of evading every substantive question she tabled on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,30252,38341,13,14,201055,6,11,12,15,16,116201,5315,5,76113,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-484971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-carol-nolan","11":"tag-crime-statistics","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-foi","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-migrant-crime","21":"tag-minister","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-questions","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116575096387708568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}