Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has said racism is a personal issue for him because of abuse he has received over his religious beliefs.
Mr Shatter told an audience of teenage schoolchildren that he has been racially abused because of his Jewish faith.
Speaking at the prize-giving ceremony for the Show Racism the Red Card annual competition, Mr Shatter said he had been subject to “racist abuse and racist attack”.
He added: “No matter how strong a personality you are, no matter how you can learn to come to terms with an event of that nature, it is always stressful - not only to you and your family and friends who see an event of that nature taking place.”
Mr Shatter later said he had been referring to incidents such as the recent one in which he received Nazi imagery and white powder through the post.
“We’ve seen it the midst of recent controversies. Some of the online commentary we see is quite unacceptable.”
He said he had experienced anti-Semitic abuse while growing up. “You learn to deal with it, but it is not easy and it is unpleasant.”
Mr Shatter believed the introduction of citizenship ceremonies was an attempt to break down barriers and ensure that “our new communities are fully embraced and engaged”.
Former Dublin footballer Jason Sherlock said he had been racially abused online by a young person recently and had confronted that young person and his mother. The abuser had apologised for his actions. "I just wanted to make him understand what it was like to be racially abused.
“When you are on the receiving end of that, you feel so low and so isolated feeling that you have done something wrong when you’ve done nothing wrong - and you feel that everybody is laughing at you and you don’t know why.”
He advised that the worst thing that can be done is for young people to keep it to themselves because “that had a horrible effect on me”.
Sherlock’s father came from Hong Hong. He recounted feeling that he was a “Dub like everyone else” growing up, but others did not see him that way because of his mixed-race background.
Looking back, he said, he wished he had understood that everybody is different and “that should be celebrated”.
Show Racism the Red Card is an anti-racism charity founded in the UK in 1995. It was established in Ireland in 2006. Its aim is to harness the high profile of sportspeople to combat racism.
RTÉ children's television presenter Diana Bucini said she came to Ireland from Moldova as an eight-year-old, without ability in English. "There was a few kids who were a little bit ignorant and picked on me," she said.
When in college she was told by an adult that she would never make it in broadcasting because she had a foreign surname and was from somewhere else. “It was a really discouraging thing to say to someone who is 18 and has all these dreams,” she said.
The overall winner of the Show Racism the Red Card competition was Castaheany Educate Together National School in Dublin 15 - a primary school that counts 11 different nationalities among its pupils.
The project the Castaheany class submitted was a video depicting fifth-class pupils developing anti-racism artwork for display at their school. So far it has been viewed on YouTube 1,200 times.
The competition calls for young people to develop creative messages about racism and integration using written, visual and audiovisual means. It is open to primary schools, secondary schools and youth groups and, this year, received over 200 entries.
