There is a need for even tougher anti-discrimination law in Britain, along with public education, to eliminate racial prejudice and bias, according to the chairman of Britain's Commission on Racial Equality.
Speaking in UCD yesterday, Sir Herman Ouseley was addressing the Joint European Regional Seminar on "Culture and Identity: Social Work in a Changing Europe".
He said that in the 1960s, signs offering accommodation and saying: "No coloureds, no blacks, no Irish, no dogs" were common across England. The first anti-discrimination legislation was introduced in 1965, and was followed by more in 1968 and 1976, when CORE was set up.
It is now unlawful to treat someone less favourably because of their race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, and national or ethnic origin.
Inequalities hit the visible ethnic minorities - Asians, Afro-Caribbeans, Africans and Chinese - hardest, he said. "And, of course, there is the notion of anti-Irish racism, which many media commentators claim not to exist."
Despite the quantity of legislation, "we still have a persistently high rate of racial discrimination. This occurs mainly in the labour market, access to high-quality training opportunities, in housing, in the criminal justice system and in education", he said.
The children of members of racial minorities had more contact with the social services than white children, with Caribbean children and those of mixed race over-represented in care.
In relation to foster placement and adoption, there had been a profound shift from the attitude that white families were best to one which accepted ethnic identity as critical to children's development.
But there had been a recent shift away from rigid same-race placements to policies which combined valuing culture and identity with the need for a loving and caring environment.
But the most serious problems for ethnic minorities was crime and harassment. "Racially motivated crime has had a devastating effect on the lives of ethnic minorities," he said. More than half of those surveyed recently had stopped going out at night or made their homes more secure.
Figures from this survey suggested up to 20,000 attacks on individuals; 40,000 subjected to racially motivated property damage, and 230,000 racially insulted. While confidence in the police to prevent this was low, increasingly, multi-agency arrangements were being made locally to help victims.