The Immigrant Council of Ireland says the current legislation and reporting procedures regarding racist incidents needs to be reviewed.

It comes as new figures show there's been an 85 per cent increase in the number of racist cases being reported here in the past year.

Since January, 142 incidents have been reported, this compares with 77 over the same period last year.

Harassment, both verbal and written, were the most common complaints, but physical violence was also reported.

The majority of cases occurred in a person’s local community or workplace.