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RACISM IS HARDER to see when it’s up close. It’s harder to recognise when it’s in the present.
We are quick to comment on the horror of racism in societies distant and past. But we have a lot of work to do right here and right now to address the racism that exists in Ireland in 2021. Racism that inflicts deep wounds on the people it touches and on us as all as a community.
Ireland’s National Action Plan Against Racism, which will be published later this year by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, is a key opportunity for the State. It is also a test of the State’s willingness to embed an anti-racist culture in our institutions and public services, and to take real and meaningful steps to improve racial equality in Ireland.
Strong anti-racism culture across public services is possible
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has brought forward research with the ESRI demonstrating the consistent and significant levels of discrimination against minority ethnic people in Ireland and documented racist attitudes across Irish Society.
Our March 2018 report found that just under half of adults born in Ireland believe some cultures to be superior to others while 45 per cent believe some races are born harder working than others.
Today, we published our recommendations to Government on Ireland’s National Action Plan Against Racism, calling for the Plan to include clear targets, indicators, timeframes, have a budget line and most importantly to involve the people who are directly affected by this scourge.
We set out what we believe needs to be done in areas such as policing, education, media, politics, employment and healthcare, making over 130 specific recommendations for State action.
It highlights the need for anti-racism to be promoted across the political and public institutions of the State through systematic training and more diverse recruitment in our police, courts, healthcare and teaching professions. We explicitly call for the establishment of a participatory annual public forum on the advancement of anti-racism, and for the plan to have its own specific budget line and designated leadership within Government.
The State can empower people to challenge racism by promoting anti-racism training. Imagine the impact of all public service staff, immigration and police officers, media editors and journalists, public officials and elected representatives, teachers, health service providers, criminal justice professionals, police, judiciary, prosecutors and large employers becoming more aware and responsive to racism through training?
Anti-Racism in policing, education and our workplaces
The challenge of addressing racism in Ireland is not a simple one. The State needs to ensure that anti-racism is an explicit priority in all relevant legislation, public policy, budgets, public body and data development.
Tolerance is learnt in our schools and educational settings have a major role in tackling racism. This needs to be a priority in the curriculum of primary, secondary and third-level education, including further education and training, and community education.
The State also needs to prioritise policing and law enforcement in Ireland’s National Action Plan Against Racism, as has been done in the European Anti-Racism Action Plan. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance found negative attitudes amongst Garda members towards minority ethnic groups and IHREC is aware of reports of racial profiling in the use of stop and search powers.
Anti-racism must be a priority in the workplace and across the professions, where more diverse workplaces are needed to reflect Ireland’s changing population. We need people from all backgrounds in decision-making positions and role-modelling for the communities they represent.
Sanctions needed for enforcement
National strategies can fail on implementation, frustrating the very people the strategy is trying to serve, or worse, lead to further entrenchment of discrimination and deprivation. We believe that monitoring and enforcement, including the use of sanctions, are a crucial part of the National Action Plan Against Racism.
We have advised the Government that sanctions should apply to public bodies failing to implement actions assigned to them under the National Action Plan Against Racism.
The Plan should task Government in developing codes of conduct for public officials and election candidates which clearly prohibit the use or endorsement of prejudicial and discriminatory discourse and provide for appropriate sanctions for breach of their conditions.
Anti-Racism regulatory reform
Significant reform to the policy and regulatory environment is essential to address the circulation of hate speech in the digital public sphere, made all the more prescient as Ireland is the European host to many social media and technology companies.
Soon to be regulated sectors, for example, the home care industry, should be explicit in their anti-racism measures like enhancement of labour inspections in private household settings and targeted oversight of employers of domestic workers.
Gaps in information on race and ethnicity
The overall shortfall in data on racial or ethnic origin in Ireland has profound consequences for our understanding of racial discrimination in this country – specifically when looking at structural and institutional barriers facing ethnic minorities.
The Commission wants to see the National Action Plan Against Racism give direction on the collection and processing of data on racial or ethnic origin across all bodies that are subject to the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty. Ireland has the framework it needs to collect data, but there is a strong reluctance to do so.
The Commission will present its recommendations to the Government’s Anti-Racism Committee on 16 September. Ireland has been without a national plan since 2008 and it is long overdue. We will see in the coming months in the content of the plan how ambitious is Ireland’s commitment to ending racism.
As a country, we occupy a privileged space in the world, and we have our own unique history of race, colonialism, tolerance. If we choose to prioritise antiracism in our state and our society, we can be European and global leaders. And we can enjoy an inclusive, tolerant and richly diverse community right here in Ireland in 2021.
Sinéad Gibney is the Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Ireland’s National Human Rights Institution and National Equality Body.
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The EU elite telling us what to do.
@Quiet Goer: Great club. Glad to be a member.
@Quiet Goer: Protecting and expanding citizens rights. Trying to create a sustainable and self sufficient economy. All the while looking to improve the environment and the living conditions of people in Europe. Sounds like good governance to me
@Quiet Goer: then leave the EU then. We are not the Soviet Union, your free to leave at any time at your own discretion. Seems to me you have issues with authority. The Eu has its faults every country no matter how democratic they seems have difficulties.
@Quiet Goer: True. We were so much better off as British subjects.
@lelookcoco: says the English fella ha.
Enjoy your Brexit and stop living in a toxic past
@Quiet Goer: yes, if we don’t vote the way they want, we are made vote again!
@Alan Campbell: Does this really have to be explained again,we didn’t vote for the Same thing again.We voted against,changes were made and we voted again.
@lelookcoco: under British rule, Ireland, at the start of the last century was a constituent part of a parliamenyary democracy, only a handful around back then. Most of Europe wasn’t democratic.
We were not a “colony” of The Uk, we were a part of it, the same as Scotland and Wales were a part of it. They sent representatives to London as we did. 100 MP’s were Irish and we often held the balance of power
@Alan Campbell: Ireland has 13 MEP’s out of a total of 705 , so proportionally we had more representation in the UK Parliament, 100 out of 700, than in the current EU Parliament!
@Daniel Roche: the only changes were “assurances” about Irish neutrality, nothing in writing. I would trust Arthur Daly more than the corrupt EU!
@Alan Campbell: There have been no famines since Ireland joined the EU. That’s a pretty big plus in my book. Secondly, Ireland is far more democratic today than it ever was under English rule. You must have an anti Ireland agenda to write the nonsense you just did. The Daily Mail comments section might suit you better.
@Quiet Goer: give your favourite MEP your vote. That’s how it works. Or just get out and live in the UK.
@Daniel Roche: some people just don’t understand! They try to be edgy and make complete fo ols of themselves
I think we all have issues with Ireland economic model. Vultures and big businesses come in by up everything while FG/ FF smile. They pay little taxes while our government then rents the properties off them
@Niall Donnelly: very correct. But that is not an EU issue, that is an Irish governance issue. Please let us not go down the road of the UK, deflecting our own national governance issues onto the EU.
With so many other countries threatening to leave I give the EU five years at most before it comes crashing down. The UK leaving really brought it to it’s knees. One more and that will be it….
@John Edward: the EU is one big gravy train. The Court of Auditors havent signed off its accounts for years
@John Edward: I’ll happily put a bet on with you,say €200 and I’ll give you 10/1.
@Alan Campbell: nope, entirely incorrect.
https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/
@Daniel Roche: deal!
@Daniel Roche: deal. Rubs hands knowing that he’s won….
@John Edward: Points and laughs knowing that you’ve lost…
Bored just reading her name. That’s four words before I found a full stop. It sounds better in reverse.
No matter how good she delivers a speach. It won’t change reality. Germany will soon be depending on arctic gas. The environmental impact laying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline makes a mockery of Eamon Ryan’s war on open fires. Ireland’s new climate bill may attack farming family’s but data centres can consume 30% of our electricity buying wind farms to avoid paying carbon taxes. Winds farms levy’s on everyone’s electricty bills funded.
@leartius: von der leyon is a failed politician. That is why she is there along with all the other failed politicians … their governments want to get rid of them!
I like the idea of the European Union and the European Parliament. The European Commission, not so much.
@The Bolt: USE on the way
@The Bolt: the commission works pretty well as the executive branch. If it was taken from the parliament the executive would be french and German
@The Bolt: it’s the un-elected commission that has all the power! That is why democratic Britain left
@Alan Campbell: this unelected nonsense really bothers me. It’s not unelected – commissioners are appointed by the their respective national governments, who were elected to make decisions for that countrys citizens. It’s called representative democracy.
@Alan Campbell: you mean England and Wales, dragging Scotland and the north of Ireland with them.You really need to educate yourself.
@Alan Campbell: our civil service isn’t elected either.
@Daniel Roche: there wasn’t 4 referendums, there was ONE referendum. When a northerner was voting they were not voting for NI to stay or leave, on the ballot paper was ” Should the UK leave the EU.
The UK went into Europe together, so they should leave together
@DJ François: “Advisers advise, ministers decide”
@Dan Morgan: yes “appointed” not elected
We have the euro but the majority of our trade is to non euro countries for example 30 percent of our exports go to the USA, that’s more than any other single country.
Ireland joined the Euro for political reasons. It should have been for economic reasons
@Alan Campbell: Are Ireland better off in the EU or out of it,it’s a simple yes better in it,ye west brits are just mad.
@Daniel Roche: Celtic tiger followed by crash ie a roller coaster economy was caused by having the wrong monetary policy. You lose monetary policy when you lose your currency
@Alan Campbell: Monetary policy was using property to fund an unsustainable boom. FFs fault.
@DJ François: monetary policy (interest rates) were/are set by the ECB i.e. Germany. During the Celtic tiger, low interest rates suited Germany to gets its flagging economy going. Meanwhile in Ireland, low interest rates were adding fuel to an already over heated economy
Ah yes the EU, the greatest money laundering facilitator in the world allowing profits to be washed through multiple jurisdictions because frictionless borders are cool. The EU (aka France and Germany) complain about our CT rate yet both countries are constantly in court over state aid. The EU, who forced our weak leaders to repay German bond holders because their investment failed. What does Paddy do? Support the EU even more. Brexit is the worst thing to ever happen as it ends any chance of reform..
Meanwhile Irish news for the past 2 years has been focused on a senile old man and the orange bad guy…
We get what we deserve. Inequality in the EU has been rising massively. Globalisation is the biggest cancer to society where we have outsourced the work and manufacturing to third world countries.
I’m having a hard time judging which has been managed worse; the EU or this failed state we called Ireland run by a gombeen and double speak. Of course in Ireland, at least we elect our own idiots, unlike the decision makers in the EU, like Van Der Layen (who was coronated and not elected, before the bootlickers come in, the option for the EU parliament was to elect her or not, there was no choice of candidates)
Well done to everyone involved.
Van det leyen’s career in Germany was rubb/ish. All EU politicians are rubb/ish! That is why they are there! Their own governments want to get rid of them! The list is endless … Big Phil was a disaster in Irish Water, dispatch him to Europe! Pee Flynn was an embarrassment and a joke to FF, so banish him to europe
Nobody cares about a speach to make them feel important. We’ll pay either way and it will be the usual middle class that will foot the bill.
A very informative article. Nice one
Irish media coverage of the EU is spasmodic and selective. The institutions of the EU come across as being generally humdrum and devoid of excitement. It’s an image problem.
“Alexander Conway is a Researcher for the Global Europe Project at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), focusing on internal EU policy developments and the EU’s role in the world.” Surprise, surprise!
Von der Lehen’s vision: The arms manufacturers and exporters club wants an army to expand its sales and the servile nations – even those who don’t profit from the industry – will volunteer to join up. Ireland should not be part of this dirty business.
Those who bombed Libya, Iraq, Syria etc and have troops in many countries across Africa and the Middle East are going to try and compete with the USA in their bloody business with the tools of FFGG cheering them on.
have your say