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Dr. Luke Danagher and Prof. Jennifer Schweppe of the School of Law presented their paper entitled: 'Public consultation and law reform: The Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024'  at Trinity College Dublin’s conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Law Reform Commission of Ireland, “Re-forming law reform: Functions, processes, and mechanisms.” Drawing on an extensive Freedom of Information process, the authors benchmarked the State’s public consultation on hate crime legislation against established legal and policy principles for designing, analysing, and reporting consultations. Their analysis identifies points of divergence between best practice and procedure in areas such as transparency, data handling, and feedback to stakeholders, and sets out targeted recommendations to strengthen future consultations and enhance the legitimacy of law-reform processes.