A lesson in racism at the filling station

IN my part-time job last summer I used to fill petrol for a couple who had come to Ireland from Nigeria.

One evening I noticed a garda looking at them rather strangely. He signalled to me to join him and proceeded to quiz me about the couple. "Where are they living?" Where are they from?" and, most startling of all, "Are you sure they're paying up?"

Shaken, I promptly informed him that I didn't know them and that, yes, they were paying up. Prejudice is not uncommon among our Guardians of the Peace. It is estimated that the gardaí are responsible for about 155 cases of racial abuse annually.