Sir, - I would like to express my alarm and disgust at the levels of racial abuse being levelled at refugees, immigrants and people from ethnic minorities in Dublin's north inner city.
Walking past a well-known fast-food outlet on O'Connell Street last week, I witnessed a very young teenager continually harassing a bouncer who was standing at the door. The teenager was spitting at him and taunting him with the usual expressions of "black bastard", "faggot", etc.
Last night, when I was walking past an Afro-Carribean food store, I saw a group of very young children shouting up at some residents in a flat: "F--- off, you blacks, go home." These are two very minor examples of some of the incidents which I have witnessed in the past month. They have shocked me because the people engaging this type of abuse have generally been young children or teenagers - the ones supposed to be our future. More serious evidence of racism in Dublin can be found in the hate-mail sent to our Lord Mayor, whose only crime was to express his tolerance towards Dublin's growing multi-cultural community.
There are two particularly worrying things about this trend. The first is the fact that Ireland has an extremely low proportion of immigrants and refugees, yet racism is rapidly getting worse. The second is the inaction of the Government.
As for the pathetic offer to take 1,000 Kosovo refugees and unbundle them into an empty army barracks, it wouldn't surprise me if Mr O' Donoghue didn't let them work, allowed them to apply for visas to stay here, refused 90 per cent of them on appeal, and sent the rest packing.
Need I go on? - Yours, etc., Ronan Murphy,
North Great Georges Street, Dublin 1.