Clondalkin Independent Councillor for South Dublin County Council, Francis Timmons, has been left the victim of another attack. This time the perpetrators damaged his car windscreen and two windows on his property in Clondalkin. The damage was discovered at around 7.30am this morning.

“My husband got up to go to work and when he went out to the hall he discovered glass all over the floor. Then, he realised that the front door window was smashed as well. Of course, then he went to the car and the car was smashed too,” Timmons told TheJournal.ie.

The incident was immediately reported to the garda.

“We live in a multicultural and diverse community and I don’t see how it’s acceptable for anybody to be targeted because of who they are.”

This is the latest in a string of incidents encountered by Mr Timmons and his husband in the past 6 months. They have received two homophobic letters and just last week, a video was circulated online of a man outside Timmons’ home speaking directly to the camera using threatening and homophobic language.

“A man can be gay but when a man tries to be a f**king woman it’s just f**king weird. You’ve got mental problems,” the man said.

The man then commented on Timmons’ Christmas decorations saying: “You want to live like a f**king child? You have no kids, you will never have kids. Get a f**king dog or a kitten.”

Clondalkin Garda Station has been made aware of this video, it is not yet understood whether both of these incidents are linked.

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Hate Crime Legislation Needed

In light of these incidents, Timmons is renewing his call for hate crime legislation to be introduced in Ireland. This would be a step towards combatting hate crimes which target individuals specifically on their race or sexuality.

“There’s currently very little you can do to charge people. It’s very hard because we don’t have hate legislation,” Timmons told TheJournal.ie. “I would give Ireland a legal route in terms of charging people for homophobic language, the same with racist language.”

“I’m a man in my 40s with a fairly thick skin,” Timmons said. “If this was sent to somebody that wasn’t able to cope with it, it could have a devastating effect leading to suicide or something very serious. It’s not acceptable to treat other human beings like that.”

“In general, I think that majority of people realise you can’t, whether it’s the travelling community, whether is the migrant community, or the LGBT community,” he said. “We’re all humans at the end of the day, we all have to live here.”

Gardaí have launched an investigation into yesterday’s incident.