An organisation representing refugees and asylum-seekers received a threat that its offices and "nigger" members would be burned, according to its spokesman.
The threat to the Association of Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Ireland was made early this month when a Government office handling immigrants was forced to shut its doors because staff could not cope with the number of applicants.
Mr Dier Tong told a roundtable discussion on racism in Europe yesterday that the incident had been reported to the Garda but volunteer workers were afraid of visiting the office as a result.
Mr Tong, a Sudanese refugee, said the association's office had received a number of "hatred calls" but this was the most serious. He said the caller asked the person who answered the phone: "Is that a nigger?"
"My colleague said, `what do you mean?' and the person immediately said he knew where our office was and if he knew the door code to get in, he would burn him and the office," he said.
"It is worrying our community and we are concerned that it would lead to people locking themselves up and not going outside."
Several asylum-seekers, as well as two Travellers, spoke about racism in Ireland.
A Nigerian asylum-seeker, Mr Remi Awogboro, called for an amnesty for refugees and asylum-seekers currently in the State.
Mr Awogboro produced copies of a 1985 newspaper report of Mr Bertie Ahern calling for 70,000 illegal immigrants to the US to be given an amnesty.
"I wasn't born a refugee or an asylum-seeker. It's my circumstances," said Mr Awogboro. He said he wanted people in authority to "accept us for what we are and to sympathise with us. I don't want to live like this. I want to be part of this society."
Mr Awogboro said Irish immigrants in the US were not called refugees, they were called Irish Americans, "so why not have a change of policy in Ireland?"
Nigerian asylum-seeker Ms Josephine Olusola said Government plans to fingerprint asylum-seekers raised human rights concerns. "Where I come from only criminals are finger-printed and I understand it's the same in Ireland," she said.
"Ireland, unlike Portugal or Spain or Britain, who were colonisers, is unique, and should try to remain a unique country, and not just mirror rigid policies of other EU countries."