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Respondents were asked if they had experienced any discrimination in their contact with An Garda Síochána including reporting a crime, traffic offences, stamping of official documents, being stopped or questioned by An Garda Síochána, etc.
Just 3% of people cited experiencing such discrimination in the two years prior to interview, up from 2% when the survey was last carried out in 2019 (See Table 11.1 and Equality and Discrimination 2019).
Analysis by respondents’ ethnicity shows that one in twelve (8%) people from a Black Irish/Black African/other Black background said they had experienced discrimination of some form in their contact with An Garda Síochána in the two years prior to interview. Similarly, some 7% of people who identified as Irish Travellers/Roma had experienced discrimination with An Garda Síochána (See Figure 11.1 and Table 11.1).
Analysis by age group shows that younger people were more likely to experience discrimination in their dealings with An Garda Síochána. Some 4% of people aged 18 to 24 years and one in twenty (5%) people in the 5 to 34 years age group experienced such discrimination in the two years prior to interview, compared with 1% of people aged 45 to 54 years (See Table 11.2).
The survey data shows that one’s socio-economic background, such as address, accent, level of education, employment status, type of housing, etc. was by far the most common ground for perceived discrimination by An Garda Síochána (30%) followed closely by race (such as one’s colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins) at 29%. Just over one in five (21%) respondents who said they had experienced such discrimination cited their gender, such as gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics, etc., as a grounds for this perceived discrimination, while a similar number (20%) cited age.
Almost four in ten said the perceived discrimination had a very serious/serious effect on their lives. One in nine (11%) felt the discrimination had a very serious impact on their lives while more than one-quarter (26%) said the perceived discrimination with An Garda Síochána had a serious impact on them (See Figure 11.2 and Table 11.3).
By far the most common setting for such discrimination was the respondent being stopped in a vehicle by An Garda Síochána (36%), followed by discrimination experienced when reporting a crime (30%). One in seventeen (6%) respondents who had experienced discrimination with An Garda Síochána said the perceived discrimination had happened frequently, while some 48% said it had happened on a few occasions. Almost one in twenty (4%) said the perceived discrimination had occurred on one occasion only (See Table 11.4).
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