Holocaust Memorial Day is being marked in Dublin today.

The commemoration takes place every year on the Sunday nearest to the 27th of January, International Holocaust Memorial Day.

An event will take place in the Mansion House at three o'clock this afternoon to honour the six million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis.

Holocaust; World war two: Warsaw Jews at gunpoint. SS troops look on. Warsaw Ghetto 1943. Image: World History Archive / Alamy

It is reported that President Michael D Higgins is due to speak at the event, but this is being met with opposition.

Chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland Maurice Cohen said Jewish people were deliberately slaughtered on a scale never seen before or since.

"Well first of all, people didn't die; they were murdered, they were slaughtered," he said.

"The Holocaust was pre-meditated industrialised slaughter that has never occurred before or since in human history.

"One has to remember, there was nine million Jewish people in 1939, [by] 1945 six million had been slaughtered and there were only three million left."

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Main image: President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins (left) meets with Holocaust survivors (from left) Walter Sekules, Suzi Diamond and Tomi Reichenthal at the National Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration event in Dublin's Mansion House. Image: PA Images / Alamy. 27 January 2019