Research reveals negative attitudes to asylum-seekers

Travellers and asylum-seekers are the minorities viewed most negatively by the majority population, according to a study published yesterday.

The research, carried out on behalf of the Government-funded Know Racism campaign by Millward Brown IMS, finds 54 per cent of people believe most asylum-seekers are bogus, while a fifth say Travellers should not have the same rights as the settled community.

It also finds 18 per cent of people have witnessed racist abuse.

Those who have had least experience of actually meeting and interacting with minorities were most likely to have a negative perception of them, said the report.

Interaction with minority groups is highest among the unemployed (50 per cent), students (48 per cent) and those living in Leinster outside Dublin.

Those who haven't had experience of minority groups included retired people (82 per cent), the over-65s (80 per cent) and farmers (78 per cent).

Asked why they had a negative impression of minority groups, those who had personal experience of them were most likely to rate begging (61 per cent) as a reason, followed by cultural differences (23 per cent), language barriers (18 per cent), being noisy neighbours (6 per cent) and other (22 per cent).

Overall, 66 per cent of respondents believed "anyone should be allowed to live in Ireland if they work and pay their taxes", with 40 per cent of people saying "ethnic groups living in this country make a positive contribution to Irish society".

However, when asked about asylum-seekers 54 per cent agree with the statement: "Most asylum-seekers are abusing the asylum system and are really economic migrants."

Some 71 per cent of people agreed with the statement: "Ireland has its fair share of asylum-seekers and should not take any more."

Some 21 per cent of all respondents said Travellers should not have the same rights as the settled community, with 23 per cent saying the nomadic way of life should not be preserved.

Mr Philip Watt, of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, said the results confirmed the link between non-interaction and negative perceptions. They also show more work needs to be done on tackling specific racism.

The report says attitudes towards Travellers are "more instinctive, more deeply ingrained and less subject to correction by liberal sensitivity".

It concludes that, "unless effective policies are developed and implemented soon, we run the risk of making the same mistakes which have already been made elsewhere".