The Garda has launched a special campaign to encourage members of the Gay Community to report homophobic hate-crimes.
The campaign coincides with Gay Pride week involving safety advice ads in gay magazines as well as leaflets and posters.
"There is a problem with the under-reporting of gay and lesbian crimes," Deputy Garda Commissioner Mr Peter Fitzgerald said at the start of the Be Proud - Be Safe campaign yesterday.
"The message we want to send to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is that we recognise it can be difficult to report these crimes as people may have to appear in court" he said.
The Garda has set up an e-mail address: gayliaison@iol.ie, and victims should report incidents by e-mail if they don't want to report them directly to a station.