The Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, has announced the establishment of an Irish national committee for the 1997 European Year Against Racism, with a budget of £100,000.
Mr Taylor was opening an Irish National Teachers' Organisation seminar on racism and xenophobia in Dublin yesterday. He said he was finalising proposals for equal status legislation, which would prohibit racial, religious, gender, sexual or anti traveller discrimination in non employment areas.
A leading British expert on racism in education, Dr David Gillborn of the University of London, said research showed that the more isolated children of ethnic minorities are, the more frequent and pronounced is the racial harassment against them.
Dr Gillborn said this kind of harassment was rarely recognised by teachers and school authorities, who might be tempted to put it gown to banter and horseplay.
In most cases the affected student would not report harassment. But if the authorities responded seriously and sensitively to a report, it was likely there would be more such complaints, as the student would "trust them with the knowledge." This was the "acid test" of a school's commitment to anti racism.
INTO general secretary Mr Joe O'Toole said Ireland had to consider its immigration and refugee laws and honestly explain why Ireland of the Welcomes" is "in fact the whitest and most exclusive country in Europe."
He also stressed that teachers had to be supported when they tried to build bridges between different communities.
He gave the example of a senior unionist politician whose child's mainly Protestant school had been involved in an recent exchange ceremony with a Catholic school in Belfast during which a few words of Irish were used.
When a tabloid newspaper questioned the politician about this, he had to distance himself from the exchange, and the result was that the school's teachers had to oppose any further exchanges with the Catholic school.
Mr Alain Mouchoux, of the European Trade Union Committee for Education, warned about the re emergence of "openly racist or so called revisionist views, backed up by research and papers published by academics," who "no longer feel the need to hide their views."
He also expressed concern about the renewed debate on IQ which tries to show there are significant intelligence differences depending on the colour of a person's skin. He mentioned new computer "games", "where the aim is to kill Jews in concentration camps more `efficiently'."