The Government has "failed on racism", according to research published yesterday by the human rights organisation Amnesty International. This failure runs the risk of fuelling racist campaigning in the forthcoming citizenship referendum, the organisation adds.
The study, carried out by Lansdowne Market Research, finds that while 56 per cent of people feel racism "is a serious problem", just 26 per cent believe the Government is doing enough to combat the problem.
"Three years ago we mounted a campaign urging the Government to show leadership against racism," said Mr Colm Ó Cuanacháin, general secretary of Amnesty International's Irish section.
"These figures reveal the Government's failure to act and its dangerous neglect of racism in Ireland." He said the Government had cut the budget for its own anti-racism awareness campaign by 63 per cent in 2003 and a further 76 per cent in 2004.
It also failed on racism in other areas, said the Amnesty report. "It has failed to transpose the EU Race Directive, failed to ratify the UN convention on migrant workers and their families and failed to published the long-promised review of the ineffective Prohibition on the Incitement to Hatred Act.
