This week, President Michael D Higgins has highlighted and condemned racism in his message to mark St Patrick's Day.

He appealed for everyone to stand in solidarity with all those across the globe who are vulnerable and in need.

With the Government's anti-racism strategy being launched early next week, RTÉ's This Week programme took to the capital to find out if people living here experience racist comments and abuse in their daily lives.

One taxi driver who was waiting to pick up a fare on Dublin's O'Connell Street said he does not think racism "is as bad as it was four or five years ago" but he still encounters it occasionally.

"It was just that they jumped to queue. They see a black taxi driver, they don't want to enter your cab, they go to the next Irish one and because the law says you can enter any taxi, you can't do anything about that."

"It's painful though, don't get me wrong, but what can you do? No one wants to experience that, it makes you less human and that's not nice," the taxi driver said.

One international student from India says he has experienced any negative remarks but says some friends have.

"My friend, who is Indian, works in a deli. He says some people don't want him to make their food. I think that's racist. He says some customers expect an Irish person to make their food."

An office worker from India, who has been living here for five years, says he experiences racism a lot in Dublin city when he goes to nightclubs with his girlfriend.

"Directly and indirectly, I face racism on a daily basis. I'm from India. For instance, bar staff say like 'the toilet is over there'. When I go to a nightclub some people also touch my hair, which is dense, without permission," he said.

"They also push me which does not make me feel good when I go there."

While walking down Henry Street, an Eastern European man, who is self-employed, says he faces racism "quite a bit".

"You know the usual things 'go back home, f***ing foreigner,' you know.

"You get immune to this after a while, you just have to keep on going and do your own thing," he said.

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Amanullah De Sondy, who is Head of Religions and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam at Univeristy College Cork, says that he thinks he has faced experiences of racism since he moved to Ireland.

"I've been here since 2015, but what I have to say is I've seen such a such a huge shift in words and action and I think, going back to the message of the President, I think the President was right to refocus us in a very direct way," Mr De Sondy said.

He added that he feels the President was speaking directly to the far-right in his St Patrick’s Day speech.

"The people of Ireland are countering that. Tens of thousands marched in Dublin, they marched in Cork and it’s a call to be anti-racist and we know that racism is a root cause for the crisis suicide rate amongst Irish Travellers."

Mr De Sondy said the Irish Network Against Racism has logged a record high in racist incidents and assaults, which he says is, "due to at some level of the far right protests".

He said a lot of people are also afraid to speak out.

"But we’re in a good moment. We're not in a situation in the US where there's a lot of issues of racism or even to our nearest neighbours in the UK," he said.

"It's not ‘are we becoming more racist’, it's about saying what do we do to make our institutions, our structures more anti-racist."