Policing Committee told of children being racially abused

Children as young as ten have been racially abused in Galway by opponents while playing soccer matches, and by teammates at training, it has been claimed.

Joe Loughnane, Chairperson of Galway Anti Racism Network (GARN), also claimed that some local soccer coaches were treating immigrant children and Irish-born children of immigrants, ‘differently’ because of their ethnicity.

Mr Loughnane told this week’s Galway City Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meeting that he was dealing with two complaints in which “young kids were racially abused by their coaches in Galway city” over the weekend.

He did not flesh-out the claim, which was made during a discussion about the latest Garda Crime Report showing an increase of 31% in minor assaults and 13% more serious assaults recorded in the city in the first eight months of this year.

Garda Superintendent Marie Skehill said there are no statistics about how many assaults are racially motivated but she said it was her experience of working in Galway, and looking at the complaints of assaults here, that racism and racially-motivated incidents are not a major problem. She urged members with knowledge of crimes, be they racially motivated or otherwise, to report them to Gardaí for investigation.

Speaking afterwards to the Connacht Tribune, Mr Loughnane, a local election candidate for People Before Profit, elaborated on the two incidents he highlighted at the JPC meeting.

One incident relates to a complaint received by a white woman, who is married to a black African man, who have a mixed-race child on a local soccer team.

The child’s mother said her son is being ‘treated differently’ by his coaches because of the colour of his skin, said Mr Loughnane.

“Two of the coaches made racists comments to the mother. One of them referenced slavery, and another made comments about her being married to a Kenyan man. The child was not present when the comments were made but she is worried that he is being treated differently,” said Mr Loughnane.

He said that racism during training and at matches is becoming a bigger issue for local teams with boys aged ten to 16.

“I’m dealing with another complaint from last weekend where immigrant players were racially abused by players from the other team. It is not a massive issue but it has become more of a problem in recent months. There isn’t a week that goes by when we (GARN) don’t receive a message on Facebook or an email with a complaint about a racist incident, be that an assault on the street, or racial abuse at a match, during training or from African taxi drivers,” he said.

Garda Superintendent Marie Skehill said there was no facility in the Pulse Garda system, which records crime statistics, to indicate whether an assault was a ‘hate crime’ or racially motivated.

Supt Skehill said it was her opinion, from her experience of dealing with victims of assaults, that racism isn’t an issue in Galway.

Members of the JPC unanimously agreed to write to the Justice Minister asking that the Gardaí begin recording incidents of racism. Mr Loughnane said there isn’t any hate crime legislation in Ireland, which means Gardaí do not have to record if race was an element in the crime.