The Government's national action plan on racism, launched yesterday, is a welcome addition to this society's legal and cultural armoury against what President McAleese described last year as a toxin directed mainly at the substantial number of immigrants to Ireland in recent years, as well as against the Travelling community, the largest indigenous minority.
It is timely, too, that it should be launched on the day the world remembered the horrors of 60 years ago at Auschwitz, a standing reminder of what that toxin can do when driven to extremes.
The plan is intended to give strategic direction to combat racism and promote the development of a more inclusive and intercultural society in Ireland. We have already become a substantially multicultural society, largely because nearly a quarter of a million people have immigrated here since the mid-1990s, drawn by the availability of work in a rapidly growing economy.
An estimated 6 per cent of the population are classified as "non-nationals", with UK and EU nationals numbering 3.4 per cent, and Asians, Africans, and non-EU Europeans making up 0.5 per cent apiece, as do Muslims. At least 166 different nationalities are recorded here. The 24,000 Travellers represent 0.6 per cent of the population. The flow of people to Ireland has been one of the strongest in the EU and has been significantly extended since 10 new states joined in May last year.
This plan has been thoroughly prepared through a detailed consultation process with the aim of adapting policy to "the changing circumstances of a more diverse Ireland", as the Taoiseach put it yesterday.
It sets out five primary objectives: to provide protection and redress against racism and incitement to hatred; to develop inclusive employment policies; to ensure that the provision of social and legal services accommodates diversity; to recognise diversity in media, the arts, sports and tourism; and to encourage full participation in Irish society by newcomers. A monitoring group has been set up to oversee the plan and further its goals.
These objectives are a progressive response to a real need as Ireland adjusts to rapid, difficult and necessarily long-term cultural change. And their success will be judged by their effectiveness in practice and across many different government departments and activities in civil society.
It is one thing to proclaim general principles, another to implement them. Nevertheless this plan gives a focused and accessible framework which all concerned can work with.