Latent dislike of people from Northern Ireland had been a disturbing aspect of the presidential election, according to the Minister of State for Equality, Justice and Law Reform, Ms Mary Wallace. She equated it with racism and xenophobia.
Ms Wallace was speaking at a conference in Dublin Castle yesterday on "Racism in Ireland: North and South", held to mark the European Year Against Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism.
The Minister also promised that the new Employment Equality Bill would become law in 1998 and the Equal Status Bill (which deals with discrimination outside the workplace) would also be published in the coming year.
"It was interesting as well as disturbing to note in the recent presidential election campaign a latent dislike of people from Northern Ireland on the part of some people here in the South, despite what we all have in common," she said. "We need to combat racism and xenophobia because they are inconsistent with the fundamental equality of all human beings, and also for the sake of cohesion in society."
The chairwoman of the National Co-Ordinating Committee for the European Year Against Racism, Ms Anastasia Crickley, said there had been a "sceptical and grudging" acceptance that racism existed in the Republic. People thought if you didn't see a problem it didn't exist, but for travellers, indigenous black Irish people, immigrants and refugees racism was an everyday experience.
The voluntary sector, and particularly groups representing travellers, had played the leading role in identifying the problem.
Dr Robbie McVeigh of the Centre for Research and Documentation in Belfast said racism took a different form in Northern Ireland. While travellers were the largest ethnic group in the Republic, the largest in Northern Ireland was Chinese.
Members of such groups often found themselves under pressure to identify with the community in which they lived. Even positive approaches posed problems. For instance, Sinn Fein had probably the best policies on travellers, but this could mean that the latter were perceived in the unionist community as republicans.
Conversely the Ulster Unionist Party had tried to win votes in the Chinese community and even produced literature in Chinese. Again there was a danger that this ethnic minority might be seen in nationalist areas as unionist in its sympathies.