Every effort should be made to ensure that the "new Irish" feel just as protected by Irish law as do those who have been born here, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, said yesterday.
"Priests and community workers tell me stories of violence, of families having to leave areas due to the vandalism they experience," he said. "Whereas the theorists of racial discrimination or xenophobia are in Ireland fortunately rare, there are examples of scapegoating and petty, yet nasty, vandalism against the new Irish. The high proportion of non-nationals in custody may to some extent indicate that non-nationals or the new Irish are unable adequately to benefit fully from services or rehabilitation and non-custodial alternatives, " he added.
Archbishop Martin was addressing the congregation at St Michan's Church, Halston Street, Dublin, to mark the opening of the new legal year.
He said the law was there to protect the fundamental rights of all, citizens or not, and to ensure that all were enabled to realise the rights they were guaranteed on paper. The law was there in a particular way to protect the weakest and to curb any tendency towards arrogance by the powerful, he said.
However, he added: "Law on its own cannot achieve social equity and cohesion. The Old Testament always spoke of the law alongside the prophetic tradition. Change in social behaviour requires good legislation and the equitable application of the law. But it also requires prophets." The rule of law and the equality of each person before the law could be realised only when economic conditions did not condition the quality of access to or the level of protection received from the law, he said.
Meanwhile, the Rev Kenneth Newell, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, said lawyers were in "a very privileged position" and the main responsibility of the privileged was to put something back into the community.
In his address to mark the opening of the new term, Dr Newell said people who came into contact with the legal profession entrusted sensitive and confidential information to lawyers and expected them to be people of integrity. "The most important thing was to hold on to integrity of spirit, to sensitivity when meeting people anxious and troubled and to display generosity in a world of massive human need."