The Government's citizenship referendum "encouraged" those with racist tendencies, the former archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey, has said.
At an "all-nations" celebration in Galway yesterday, Dr Empey said the evident rise of racism was "truly a deadly cancer of the soul" and anathema to Christian teaching.
The fact that the only strangers now welcome here were "tourists with lots of money" was a "dreadful comment" on "the land of the Celtic Tiger and a hundred thousand welcomes".
Dr Empey joined seven African and two Irish pastors at the multi-denominational service hosted by Rev Patrick Towers of St Nicholas's Collegiate church.
Dr Empey said: "I cannot say that the Government intended the referendum to be racist in nature, but what I am sure of is that it encouraged those who had this tendency already."