Embassy flooded with calls showing support

THE POLISH embassy in Ireland has been inundated with calls since the incident last Saturday which resulted in Marius Szwajkos and Pawel Kalite dying after being stabbed outside a chip shop.

Embassy spokeswoman Nikola Sekowska said they had been receiving at least 20 calls a day from Irish people expressing their sorrow and outrage at the incident.

"They have told us that Polish people are still welcome here and it should not be treated as a racist incident," she said.

Polish ambassador to Ireland Dr Tadeusz Szumowski also said it was not a racially-motivated attack. "It was an act of pure hooliganism which knows no boundaries and no frontiers. It could have happened anywhere."

Nevertheless, the Polish Information and Culture Centre, in conjunction with the Polska Gazeta newspaper, is holding discussions on Wednesday next to discuss tensions between the Irish and immigrant communities. Organiser Kazik Anhalt said the prospect that it might have been motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment could not be ruled out.

"The vast majority of immigrant workers work in the low-pay sector and this can create frustration and resentment . . . If a father talks about resenting immigrants, he can pass it on to his family."

Polish lawyer Marcin Szulc, who works as a legal executive dealing with inquiries from his own community, said: "It's not uncommon to hear racial remarks if you are Polish with poor English and you live in certain areas.

"We get phone calls from people who aren't exactly well-treated because they are 'bloody foreigners coming here to take our jobs'. I heard this myself when I was working as a security guard," he said.