Noel Makoko went out for a walk in Fairview Park last Sunday and came back with a broken nose, a swollen eye and a bloody shirt. A Congolese asylum-seeker who has been living in Dublin for almost two years, he says he was set upon by eight men who taunted and then beat him.
"They called me monkey, they called me nigger. They pushed me around and then kicked me to the ground. When one of them showed a knife, I screamed and they ran off." A passing motorist took him home and rang for help.
For the Garda, his case is just one more incident in a growing catalogue of minor attacks and beatings of asylum-seekers. For Mr Makoko and many of the young, black asylum-seekers living in Dublin's poorer districts, the threat of violence and abuse has become a near-permanent feature of their lives.
As his friend Mr Land Vey says: "Everywhere I go I am insulted. A man slaps me at the bus stop. Someone throws a used nappy at me from his window. The policeman sees it but he does nothing. Truly, this is a hard place to live in."
Anti-immigrant tensions in some parts of Dublin's inner city are running high and community workers say they fear there could be a serious incident.
But at least some initiatives are being taken to counter the growing racism. Just down the road from Mr Makoko's bedsit in Summerhill, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, yesterday met a group of local women who are attending a training course designed to increase awareness and understanding of the reasons why asylum-seekers come to Ireland.
Funded by Irish Aid, the course aims to encourage the harmonious development of multi-cultural and multi-racial communities here, according to the director of the Lourdes Youth and Community Services Centre, Ms Sarah Kelleher. She says more needs to be done to prepare and educate Irish people for the arrival of immigrants.
The group provides a forum for contact between the local community and the arrivals from abroad. And contact does help to break down prejudices and fears, says Ms Kelleher.
One woman said she hadn't known before that many refugees speak English or that they were interested in talking about their feelings about living here. Another said she now realised the social problems of her area in Dublin were the same as those experienced in many other cities.
"The refugee issue is a global challenge with a local impact. It's not enough for those of us in Government to simply deplore racism; we also have to see to it that measures are taken to counter it," said Ms O'Donnell. "Now that the economy is doing better we have to be able to hold out the hand of friendship to people who are fleeing from persecution."
The Minister used the occasion to launch the annual report of the National Council for Development Education, which gives almost £1 million annually to groups providing development education. This year, the largest single grant, some £60,000, goes to Comhlamh, the association of returned development workers, to provide education programmes for adults and young people.
While development education tries to explain the inequalities which exist in the world, a growing portion of the funding is now going towards projects like the Lourdes course which promote racial harmony here in Ireland. Ironically, many of the inner city primary schools which are starting to provide modules in development education already have sizeable numbers of immigrant children on their books.