President Mary McAleese has warned of certain voices in society which are "poisoning young minds with contempt" for other people.
Congratulating the organisers of a new educational project on the Holocaust, Mrs McAleese said: "The evidence, regrettably, is all around that you have started not a moment too soon for our world.
"I hope with the help of your efforts Ireland will quickly evolve into a loving, caring, inclusive society which honours the memory of those who died in the Holocaust and all those whose lives have been, and still are, tormented by hatred."
She was speaking at the Mansion House in Dublin yesterday evening at the inauguration of the Holocaust Educational Trust, a new organisation aimed at promoting the memory of the Shoah in Ireland.
The President said the Holocaust had "no equal in human history". She added that it "showcases the atrocious evil that lurks in the everyday human heart. Sometimes we call it racial hatred, anti-Semitism, bigotry, intolerance, sectarianism, but it has proved its power as the most potent weapon of mass destruction known to humanity."
Oliver Donohoe, a member of the trust, said the group had been established to address the "extraordinary levels of ignorance about the Holocaust".
He added that the recent racist attacks on Jewish buildings in Dublin showed that anti-Semitism was still present in Ireland.
Among the group's activities will be the creation of educational material based on testimonies of the few remaining survivors who are living in Ireland, and awareness raising for Holocaust Memorial Day in January.
The trust is based on a long-running British equivalent, whose chairman Greville Janner had expressed disappointment at a decision by the Muslim Council of Britain to boycott this year's Holocaust Memorial Day amid claims that it had failed to address the Palestinian question.
Mrs McAleese said: "For future generations, the lesson of the Holocaust is probably the most important lesson they will ever learn." She added that 21st-century Ireland had its own experience of "the toxin of irrational prejudice", from "the long history of sectarian conflict to the treatment of Travellers and, more recently, of emigrants to our shores.
"Our aspiration as a nation is to be a truly inclusive society, comfortable with differences of faith, culture, ethnicity and colour."
