Gardai will for the first time start recording race crimes following the force's adoption this week of a formula for classifying incidents as racially motivated, The Irish Times has learned.
The sanctioning of the new definition by senior gardai comes days before the opening next Friday of a United Nations world conference against racism in Durban, South Africa.
Crimes will be deemed to be racially motivated if they are believed to be so by the victim and/or a member of the Garda, a witness or a person acting on the victim's behalf.
The move will be welcomed by human rights groups such as Amnesty International which have been critical of the lack of any Garda mechanism for recording racial crimes.
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, will lead the Irish delegation at the summit, which runs until September 7th.
The definition was drawn up by the Garda Racial and Intercultural Office following broad consultation within the Garda and with ethnic minority groups and non-governmental organisations.
A senior Garda source said gardai would begin recording crimes as racially motivated through the PULSE computer system once a directive on the definition is issued to all stations.
"It's a working definition to give clarity to members of An Garda Siochana and ethnic minorities," said the source.
"We will be able to identify hot spots or areas where racism would appear to be a problem so preventive measures can be taken by members of the Garda Siochana and others."
The definition is similar to that adopted in the UK in the wake of a high-profile inquiry into the murder of a black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, by a white gang in London in 1993.
The inquiry, by Sir William Macpherson, published in 1999, included the recommendation that "a racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".
The adoption of this definition led to a large increase in the number of reports of racist crime, particularly in the London Metropolitan Police area.
However, it was criticised recently for being "entirely subjective" by a judge in a trial of several Leeds footballers.
The new Irish definition is not as wide as the Macpherson one. "The Macpherson definition emanated from the Lawrence inquiry. We wouldn't have thought that that would have been appropriate in an Irish context," said the source.
Amnesty International has called for heavier penalties for race crimes, and it is understood this matter is being considered by the authorities.