The pilot, developed by Nasc, the Irish Immigrant Support Centre, in partnership with An Garda Síochána, follows two high- profile cases last year where Roma children were removed from their families on suspicion that they had been abducted, largely on the basis that they did not look typically Roma.

Jennifer DeWan, Nasc spokeswoman, said the negative experiences of the Roma community in Cork had been repeatedly captured in various Nasc reports, including last year’s In From the Margins: Roma in Ireland where 75% of Roma women surveyed said they had been fined for begging and 25% had spent time in prison for non-payment of fines, while 37.5% of Roma men said they had been stopped in their car by gardaí and searched. Nasc said the findings indicated “a perception that the community needs to be heavily policed and points to a concerted targeting of this group” which in turn “serves only to foster hostility and mistrust”.

Some 20 officers will take part in the project which gets under way in Cork this week. The findings will be used to develop a national training tool kit.