President Michael D Higgins has condemned recent attacks on Indian people living in Ireland as a “stark contradiction” to the values the Irish public hold dear.
Mr Higgins said any person who has been “drawn into such behaviour through manipulation or provocation is to be unequivocally condemned”, as he noted that many of the alleged perpetrators of the assaults were under the age of 18.
“Whether such provocation stems from ignorance or from malice, it is essential to acknowledge the harm that it is causing,” he said.
His statement came on Tuesday as An Garda Síochána began deploying additional patrols in parts of Dublin in response to the recent rise in reports of attacks on Indian nationals.
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In addition to the patrols in Dublin, senior officers have been assigned to investigate the incidents reported to the force, some of which are being investigated as potential hate crimes.
Garda juvenile liaison officers have also started engaging with youth and other groups in an attempt to discourage future incidents and offer support.
Garda headquarters announced the measures in a statement on Tuesday. It said it “is co-ordinating activity across the country to support the Indian community” which “includes proactive engagement with the community, representative groups, and the Indian embassy”.
Garda management is also engaging with social media companies regarding the posting of videos targeting members of the Indian community and other minorities.
Mr Higgins said such attacks “diminish all of us and obscure the immeasurable benefits the people of India have brought to the life of this country”.
Of the Indian community, he said “their presence, their work, their culture, have [all] been a source of enrichment and generosity to our shared life”.
He said the people of Ireland “are all mindful of the immense contribution this community has made, and continues to make, to so many aspects of Irish life, in medicine, nursing, the caring professions, in cultural life, in business and enterprise”.
There were 78,000 Indian nationals living in the State in 2023, according to population estimates from the Central Statistics Office. Indian nurses accounted for a fifth of all registered nurses in Ireland last year, despite the community amounting to less than 2 per cent of the total population.
The President said he wishes “to express the deep sense of gratitude we all in Ireland owe to the Indian community here”.
He said when he met India’s minister of external affairs earlier this year and they “discussed how much our histories share the experience of paths towards independence”.
He named Irish-Indian suffragist Margaret Cousins, who established the All India Women’s Conference in 1927, and “the exchange of expertise” as Ireland and India drafted post-independence constitutions in the early 20th century as proof that “Ireland’s connections with India are neither recent nor superficial”.
“Ireland has long been shaped by migration, both outward and inward,” he said. “Those who left our shores carried our culture and values into faraway lands, often depending on the generosity of strangers.”
Mr Higgins said public spaces, including the internet, “should never be poisoned from messages of hate or incitement to violence” which “damage and corrode the most fundamental and enduring instincts of Irishness” such as friendship and care.
“That shared human experience should remain at the heart of how we treat those who have come to make their lives here. To forget that is to lose a part of ourselves.”
