Racist attacks report challenged

Garda figures which appear to show "Irish people are officially the least racist in Europe" underline the fact that there is no real method of monitoring racist attacks, according to the director of Amnesty International.

Mr Sean Love was reacting to Garda figures, reported yesterday, which recorded just 15 racially motivated incidents last year and 12 in 1999. One newspaper report said this showed the Irish were the least racist in Europe. "These figures do not represent the real prevalence of race related incidents," said Mr Love. "For example, verbal abuse, being spat at - they aren't crimes so they don't get reported to the police. But they [victims of such attacks] come to us. The absolute reality is that the level of racism is high."

He said that even where people were victims of racially motivated assaults they were not always "immediately comfortable with going to the gardai".

"That is not to criticise the gardai who are doing a lot of good work in relation to racism," he added.

In March, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia found one-fifth of people here found the presence of people of another nationality disturbing in their daily lives. The study into levels of racism across Europe, was carried out for the European Commission.

While acknowledging that Government figures, including the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, have stated their opposition to racism, he said there needed to be greater political leadership on the issue.