Racist attacks in Ireland by young people are discussed as if young people haven't watched adults carry out hate crime with impunity here for decades - as well as institutional racism that makes minorities homeless, jobless and mentally and physically unsafe. Context is crucial.

"Cracking down" on young people is just pretending that this is not about the absence of a National Action Plan Against Racism for the last decade, no antiracism strategy for schools, and widespread Garda inaction on neighbourhood harassment (see @INARIreland reports 2013-2019).

Let's talk about impunity for Gardai in racial profiling we see on our streets every day, landlords who won't rent to migrants, employers who won't hire qualified minorities, politicians who use hate speech on the campaign trail, tech companies who allow hate to thrive online.

Let's talk about the impunity granted to past governments who failed to update the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 in the 20+ years it has been "under review". Or the impunity of the Govt who abolished the NCCRI, and slashed the migrant support sector.

The strategic demolition of much of Ireland's antiracist infrastructure in 2009 has never been addressed and has been the subject of many UN hearings and EU reports since. That included e.g. all signposting to state supports on employment discrimination.

Police youth diversion programmes are good, but criminal justice must not be the only response. We need an explicit antiracism strategy for ALL schools, community youth development, AND the erosion of impunity for big tech firms & politicians facilitating online hate.

The National Action Plan Against Racism expired in 2008. The Intercultural Education Strategy expired in 2015.

NCCA Guidelines on Intercultural education in Schools published in 2005/6, teachers received no training, and no resources other than the guidelines themselves were provided for schools. There is no follow up research into or monitoring of the implementation of the guidelines.

Some schools are still using the resources provided in the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) [trade union] INTO Cultural Education Guidelines for Schools (2001) which included a charter, which schools adopted voluntarily.

The Anti-Bullying Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools (DES 2013) defined racism in Irish education as something that happens between children and young people. It does not acknowledge that racism in schools is one part of a much wider societal problem.

These bullying guidelines are considered in the sector to be very good, but they address racism between children only, and are not connected with any mechanisms for complaint against the schools, and do not address racism by teachers. Racist abuse is still rife despite these.

The Migrant Integration Strategy (2017-2020) includes only 2 items on Education – "# 36 The fostering and development of positive attitudes towards diversity and celebrating difference will continue to form part of the school curriculum" and

"#31 The effectiveness of training for teachers on managing diversity and tackling racism will be reviewed (Department of Education and Skills 2018 – 2019)." There are no items on Education in the “Actions tackling racism and promoting social inclusion” document attached.

These are entirely insufficient to proactively address racism in schools and to leverage the opportunity of formal education to establish antiracist behaviours amongst young people.