the Women\u2019s Coalition event and the evidence offered<\/a>, and that she had then today been contacted by Irish Times journalist Ellen Coyne who said that she was writing a piece which would state that \u201ca number of elected representatives attended and supported a campaign that is trying to link immigration with sexual violence in Ireland, despite having no evidence available to show a link between migration and crime in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\nMs Coyne also said that the Women\u2019s Coalition on Immigration had tried \u201cto correlate, without evidence, a number of high profile incidents before the courts with a general increase in reports of sexual violence in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Irish Times political correspondent said that Dublin Rape Crisis Centre had \u201cwarned about efforts to \u201cweaponise\u201d sexual violence against migrants and said it has no evidence that immigration is a \u201ccentral driver\u201d of the harm experienced by those it supports.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, Carol Nolan said that the Irish Times \u201cshould be perfectly well aware that the Irish state refused to aggregate data on crime based on nationality and ethnicity, and that was why the experience of other countries was so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I said last week, I have constituents telling me all the time that they do not feel safe anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Irish Times are asking readers to deny reality \u2013 and it seems that they are in denial about migration and sexual crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deputy Nolan said she has \u201cno faith or confidence in the mainstream Irish media to report accurately or fairly on what is without doubt, a clearly established pattern, seen in a number of EU member states, that correlates high rates of sexual violence with men of particular ethnic and cultural backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI completely reject any attempt to frame what the coalition is attempting to achieve as anything other than the protection of women and girls,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe media can go on believing there is no connection between high rates of immigration and sexual violence if it wants. I prefer to live in the real world where real harm is done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Deputy Nolan said that the Irish Times could \u201cchose to be in denial about the facts in relation to immigration, but the Irish people deserve to hear the facts and the experience of other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
She told the event last week that: \u201cmy concern is that while we have had successive governments making limited efforts to tackle sexual violence, they have at the same time effectively turned a blind eye to a major contributing factor to violence against women and girls; namely the presence here of non-national men who appear to view sexual violence or aggression as a right\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added that Ms Coyne had attended the press event earlier this month organised by the Women\u2019s Coalition on Immigration but had not since reported on what was said.<\/p>\n
Deputy Ken O\u2019Flynn, who was also contacted by the Irish Times, said that he\u00a0attended the event in question to listen to concerns raised by women about safety and accountability within the criminal justice system. His participation was motivated by the need to ensure that issues raised by victims are heard and addressed, he said.<\/p>\n
Deputy O\u2019Flynn said he has been clear that sexual violence is a serious crime that must be prosecuted regardless of the background of the perpetrator, and that equality before the law must apply in every case.<\/p>\n
He pointed to previous statements he had made on the issue.\u00a0\u201cFour years ago a vulnerable woman with an intellectual disability was sexually assaulted by a migrant. Recently, our courts ruled that he should receive a reduced sentence because, owing to his nationality, he would face difficulties in an Irish prison. Accountability before the law should apply equally to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deputy O\u2019Flynn said he has submitted a Private Members\u2019 Bill to the Parliamentary Drafting Office which would require the publication of anonymised annual statistics on the nationality and immigration status of persons convicted of offences in Ireland. \u201cThe aim is to support transparency and better-informed policy discussions, in full compliance with data protection law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the public debate on criminal justice policy should be informed by accurate data and that raising concerns about equality before the law should not be mischaracterised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue at hand in relation to ethnicity of offender is made more difficult and more opaque due to the fact that Ireland does not publish detailed crime statistics broken down by nationality or ethnicity of offenders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He pointed to Sweden which he said collects statistics on crime by birthplace or immigrant background, mainly through research from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Br\u00e5) and court analyses.<\/p>\n
\u201cA major Swedish TV investigation analysing 843 rape and attempted-rape court cases found that\u00a058% of convicted offenders had a foreign background (born abroad or with immigrant parents),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn cases where the victim did not know the attacker, the proportion of offenders born outside Europe rose to about 75%.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAround 38% of people convicted of violent crime in Sweden in 2022 were foreign-born, while immigrants made up roughly 18% of the population, with similar patterns appear for some offences such as assault and robbery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TDs who spoke at a cross-party alliance event last week organised by the Women\u2019s Coalition on Immigration which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[158699,61,1629,60,124128,35945,43,158700],"class_list":["post-348308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-carol-nolan","tag-ie","tag-immigration","tag-ireland","tag-irish-times","tag-ken-oflynn","tag-news","tag-sexual-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}