Exactly 15 months ago today the Government accepted an interdepartmental recommendation to run a national anti-racism public awareness campaign.

Last October the office of the Minister for Justice, Mr John O'Donoghue, said the campaign would begin before Christmas, and £4.5 million was earmarked to promote an intercultural society where racism was effectively addressed.

The campaign has not happened. While we wait, racist attacks continue. Black-owned shops have their windows broken with such monotonous regularity that some owners have stopped reporting them. For many people, verbal abuse is part of their daily routine. The problem is not confined to Dublin, and targets are not just immigrants. Racism has been inflicted on black Irish people and Travellers for generations.

Recent travel guides have warned potential holidaymakers of the extraordinarily virulent racism that has become a feature of Irish life, and our reputation among tourists has been damaged.

An African woman working in Dublin says her young children are bullied on their way to school. They are called niggers and monkeys, spat at, and stones are thrown at them. We have reports from a Dublin prison of a black inmate who has to kiss the feet of a prison officer every time he passes him.

But the Government's response to such problems is being pushed at a glacial pace. Racism is an attack on the very notion of human rights, a systematic denial to certain people of their full human rights just because of their skin colour or ethnicity. It is an assault on the fundamental principle underlying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declares that human rights are everyone's birthright and apply to all without distinction.

The promised public awareness campaign is crucial, but it won't be enough. It was Dr Martin Luther King who said in 1967: "It may be true that the law may not make a man love me but it can restrain him from lynching me - and I think that is pretty important." And so, while the law may not change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men if it is vigorously enforced. Vigorous enforcement of antiracist laws has not been one of the Government's strongest points. The Prohibition on the Incitement to Hatred Act is outdated, ineffective and does not deter acts of racial hatred.

Yet the Government is under legal obligations to protect people from racism. Under the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Government must take measures to prevent racial discrimination, not only by its own officials but also by private individuals.

It must ensure everyone's right, regardless of race, colour, descent, nationality or ethnic origin, to equality before the law and protection from harm.

At present it is impossible to begin to assess accurately the real level of racism in Irish society. Incredibly, no official statistics of racial incidents are kept, and it is left to voluntary bodies to record racist attacks. This is wholly unacceptable.

What's needed, at a minimum, is an independent body to investigate racially-motivated incidents where people can report racial abuse in confidence and where levels of racism can be gauged.

Of course racism is not always expressed through physical violence or verbal abuse. But when you look at how many black or Traveller gardai, teachers, TDs and media personalities we have in this country it should make you wonder how discriminatory we really are.

In August, in South Africa, Mary Robinson will chair the UN World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, Racial Discrimination and Related Intolerance. She has rightly demanded that politicians should lead by example. Racism, she says, is an issue which calls for a strong stance and a transparent approach.

Some leaders have had the courage to speak out clearly and show solidarity with victims of racially-motivated attacks. We need more of that, and not only when outrages are committed. We need to hear our political leaders championing diversity, extolling the virtues of multicultural, multi-ethnic societies, defending the vulnerable.

Fifteen months on from that first promise, the Government's public awareness project has still not been delivered, or even timetabled. Racism is taking hold. People are being abused in our streets and attacked in their homes.

Is the Government waiting until we catch up with other countries in racist murders before it takes action?

Sean Love is the director of Amnesty International's Irish section