"FINANCIAL and other incentives" should be available to employers to recruit long term unemployed Catholics in Northern Ireland, according to a report by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR).
The report shows that Northern Catholics are twice as likely to suffer long term unemployment.
However, a survey of employment and unemployment figures for the past five years in the report found that the position of Catholics in employment had improved markedly during that period as a result of fair employment practices and laws.
The SACHR chairman, Mr Michael Lavery QC, said yesterday there was no evidence of positive discrimination against either section of the community in employment.
He said that while SACHR believed there should be a form of affirmative action to reduce Catholic long term unemployment there was no belief in the notion of reverse discrimination.
However, he emphasised that the "intractable" problem of long term unemployment among Catholics was having a corrosive effect on those involved. It could not be tolerated, he said.
The SACHR report recommended a number of state incentives including grants to employers to help alleviate the problem of long term unemployment. The report did not recommend sanctions against employers but said the government should set "realistic targets" to reduce the sectarian imbalance in long term unemployment.
The commission also said Catholics should be encouraged to find employment in the security forces and ancillary services. The report said that of 21,3l9 people working in the security services in Northern Ireland 15 per cent of all public sector employees - only 8.1 per cent were Catholics.
The report shows that in 1971 a Catholic man was 2.6 times more likely to be unemployed than a Protestant. In 1991 this had reduced only slightly to a ratio of 2.2. Catholic women are 1.8 times more likely to be unemployed than Protestant women.
The SACHR report was welcomed by the Secretary of State, Dr Mo Mowlam, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the public sector union, UNISON.
The report, Employment Equality: Building for the Future, contained a dissenting report by one SACHR member, Mr Dermot Nesbitt. He said yesterday it was his view that the report did not sufficiently represent improvements in Catholic employment. The other members disagreed with him.
Also yesterday, the Democratic Dialogue group in Northern Ireland recommended that notions of "parity of esteem" be included in statute and given "enforceable status". Parity of esteem rights, it says, would include equality before the law in economic, social, political and cultural life and freedom of cultural expression.