President Michael D Higgins will deliver the keynote speech at an event to mark National Holocaust Memorial Day despite objections from the Israeli ambassador to Ireland.
Dana Erlich has called for President Higgins to withdraw from the event next Sunday and accused him of helping to nurture an “anti-Israeli atmosphere”.
The outgoing ambassador also said she believes he had helped to “foster antisemitism”.
But Áras an Uachtaráin said: “President Higgins statements will show, through this work in politics and as President, that he has again and again strongly condemned antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism”.
The statement, which was issued to RTÉ, also said the President’s previous statements included “the clear suggestion that any targeting of Jewish or Israeli people in Ireland is completely wrong and should be addressed immediately by the State and non-State actors”.
It comes after Ms Erlich told the Sunday Independent that she believed President Higgins should reconsider speaking at the event at the Mansion House in Dublin on January 26.
The event will mark 80 years since the end of World War II and remember all those who perished in the Holocaust.
Ms Erlich said he had had many opportunities to speak and echo his opinions, but that National Holocaust Memorial Day should be “something solemn, focusing on Holocaust remembrance, Holocaust education, and preventing antisemitism from rising again”.
