Ireland is one of the few member states that has a good system of registering racist crimes or incidents, an EU monitoring body has found in a report to be published today.
However, the chairwoman of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia has warned politicians not to use racist language in the upcoming election campaign.
Anastasia Crickley, who is also a lecturer at NUI Maynooth, said yesterday she hoped that political parties would adhere to a charter on anti-racism that they had all signed.
She made her comments shortly before presenting the centre's 2006 annual report to the European Parliament.
The 142-page report notes an increase in anti-migrant discourse from some politicians and the media following the Irish Ferries industrial dispute.
It also notes a 21.2 per cent average increase in the number of racist attacks or similar incidents that have been reported in the Republic between 2000 and 2005. Last year 94 such racially motivated attacks were notified to the authorities, according to the report.
Ms Crickley told The Irish Times the Republic would face a particular challenge in the coming year to ensure the election was free from discriminatory language. But she said she thought it would be possible to emulate the example of the 2002 election, which was generally free from discriminatory language that could prompt a rise in racism.
The report also notes a rise in anti-immigrant discourse in other jurisdictions such as Belgium. It notes that in October 2005 a Belgian food company was accused of bringing in Polish workers to replace recently dismissed temporary workers and paying wages beneath the Belgian guaranteed minimum income.
Referring to the controversy over the Irish Ferries dispute, Ms Crickley said the level of job displacement in Ireland was probably not as high as people thought and migrants' positive contribution to the Irish economy and society should be acknowledged.
The 2006 annual report of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia is the first to cover a full year since EU enlargement in May 2004.
It notes Ireland is one of the few member states that has a good system of registering racist crimes or incidents, and found eight of the 11 EU states that keep adequate statistics recorded an increase in racially motivated attacks between 2000 and 2005.
Three states reported a fall in racially motivated attacks during the same period.
But the report says comparisons between countries should be treated with care due to the different methods that each state uses to compile statistics.