Sir, – The need for robust anti-discrimination policies in every area of our public services has again been highlighted by the omissions in the Department of Education's database for primary school pupils highlighted by your correspondent Joe Humphreys ("'Multi-racial' oversight on school database questionnaire admitted", February 3rd). It appears the decision to have "white Irish" as the only designated Irish category was a genuine mistake; however the incident shows our public services still seem unaware that 17 per cent of people who call Ireland home were born elsewhere. This apparent oversight again raises questions about whether proper training is being provided to prevent inequality, discrimination or racism in the delivery of education, health, policing and the many other areas where the State interacts with our daily lives.
During the past year, 13 per cent of the 214 incidents of racism and discrimination reported to the Immigrant Council of Ireland occurred when people where accessing or using public or community services. Trade unions have carried out valuable awareness-raising work in this area; it is time management in the departments and agencies of the State stepped up to the mark to ensure that all public services are delivered equally, fairly and justly.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland is asking that each public agency would have an anti-racism strategy which should be accessible online and be available to view at all frontline offices. – Yours, etc,
DENISE CHARLTON,
Chief Executive,
Immigrant Council
of Ireland,
Andrew Street, Dublin 2.
Sir, – While I am discouraged by the Department of Education’s surprisingly short-sighted classification of personal ethnic identity in Ireland, I was relieved to see Joe Humphreys drawing attention to this difficult to discuss matter.
Discussing inter-ethnic relations is often laden with complexities and gradations. In my work, I have researched social interactions in multi-ethnic primary schools across Ireland and designed a questionnaire for children on the topic. Deciding on appropriate, considerate and inclusive terminology that was also concise and “quantifiable” for the purpose of survey analysis was challenging, to say the very least.
What the Department of Education failed to recognise in their crude and exclusive marriage of “whiteness” and “Irishness” is the undisputable fact that now, more than ever, Ireland’s children are not all white – Irish children born to migrant parents, children adopted by two multigenerational Irish parents, children born to ethnic minorities long resident in the country. Many are not white; all are Irish – by birth, by nationality, by culture.
The inclusion of a few extra categories on a survey item (ie Black Irish, Asian Irish, etc) plus two additional questions on the child’s country of birth and parents’ countries of birth (to identify first and second generation migrants) might make analysing more nebulous, and it would inevitably take up additional space on an already tight questionnaire. But it would also allow for thousands of non-white Irish children to classify their identity in a slightly less restrictive, more truthful manner. Still crude, still constricting, still dreadfully limited with regards to describing ethnicity but still infinitely better than “white Irish” or “not Irish”. – Yours, etc,
KATE BABINEAU,
Arbour Hill,
Dublin 7