The Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act, introduced last month, sends out a message that the Republic does not welcome foreigners, Dr Jean Pierre Eyanga, of the Congo Solidarity Group, told a Dublin conference on racism yesterday.
Dr Eyanga said that asylum-seekers could be targeted by the legislation and deported. "They all find this legislation deeply unfair. The message that goes out is that Ireland doesn't welcome foreigners." He added: "I would not be amazed to see a rise in racism."
He said that questions had been raised as to whether Ireland was a complete democracy, because democracies were supposed to protect minority groups. "Personally, I think it is, but some people don't properly do their job . . . there are clever people who do nothing to stop racism."
He recounted a case in which a Congolese girl attending school had been persistently assaulted by another pupil, but the principal had done nothing. On another occasion a refugee had been verbally abused by a passenger on a bus and the other passengers had done nothing.
Dr Eyanga said he had been kicked by children on Buckingham Street, where he lived, and had been sent hate mail. When he went to the gardai, they had asked him why he chose to live in that area. "The Government, the political parties, the trade unions and the churches should make a clear and strong statement expressing publicly their real will to eliminate racism," Dr Eyanga said. "This is a most important step in this matter."
Ms Rose Tuelo Brock, of the Galway One World Centre and Women from Minorities in Europe, said that although anti-discrimination legislation was in place there was a need to educate people that the legislation existed. "Out there on the street young black men still get attacked. Out there on the street young black women still get verbally raped. And young black men still get roughed up by the police", she said.
Ms Brock said there was a need to challenge the ideas people had of black people. "There are black people who are Irish and Irish people who are black, and they are not all footballers or singers. They are normal people."
The general secretary of the INTO, Senator Joe O'Toole, addressing a seminar of the conference on education and awareness, said that a pluralist society would only be achieved through tolerance and then inclusion. "In such a society, minorities will be respected and included rather than preserved and separated," he said.
Speaking at a conference seminar on legal protection against racism, the director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Mr Donncha O'Connell, said the review of legislation on incitement to hatred would have to address the issue of proving intent. "It is almost certainly this requirement which has hindered the DPP in bringing prosecutions under the Act, resulting in zero convictions," he said.