improving government service delivery to minority ethnic ... - NCCRI

improving
government
service
delivery
to minority
ethnic groups
Chapter 4: Ireland Research Findings 126_127
Finally, because of an excessive workload, ELOs may spend very little time performing ELO duties because
they have to deal with other station issues as well and because their ELO role is part of their wider community
policing responsibilities. ELOs interviewed strongly disagreed with the idea that there is too much legislation
dealing with discrimination against ethnic minority communities. However, one ELO said it is difficult to put
the legislation into effect. The fact that there are no ‘dedicated’ ELOs whose sole or primary task it is to be
responsible for migrant and minority group relations was regarded as a significant issue.
There is an equality policy in the Gárdaí but not a racial equality policy in a more specific sense. Information
about the ELO structure is disseminated throughout the whole organisation through a directive from Gárda
Head Quarters. The Dublin-based Community Relations unit includes racial and intercultural officers. The
corporate plan contains a reference to the needs of minority members of staff and clients from immigrant and
minority ethnic groups and its Goal 6 is dedicated to race relations. With regard to policies and practices
for recording and dealing with complaints about racist incidents there is an internal policy on bullying and
harassment. The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 also exists and any such incidents can and are
recorded but the numbers are very low. This is monitored by the Community Relations division of the Gárda but
overall responsibility is in the hands of a different section, Crime Policy Administration.
At Gárda HQ there is one clerk from Croatia, but the only other foreign staff are cleaners. The tourist support
services have volunteers from minority ethnic backgrounds working for them. Informal initiatives have been put
into place to deal with the needs of particular minority ethnic communities and will continue to be considered in
the future.
The interviewees felt there are equal opportunities for progression for all employees in the Gárda, whilst they
strongly disagreed with the notion that the organisation generally provides a worse service to clients from
ethnic minority communities than it does to other clients. When asked if dealing with clients from immigrant
and ethnic minority communities presents more of a problem than dealing with the community in general the
interviewee from Gárda HQ strongly disagreed. However, one ELO said there are not enough resources. The
example cited was the racial and intercultural office in Dublin, which started as a pilot program seven years
ago, but is ‘completely under-resourced’ now. Interviewees felt that the organisation would be fully supportive
of members of staff from ethnic minority communities who are subjected to racial harassment from clients and
other from other staff.
In sum, it could be said that much work has been done within the Gárda to mainstream service provision for
minority ethnic groups. This has also included a notable initiative, discussed in the section on targeting, to
foster recruitment to the Gárda from such groups. Nonetheless, there has been some slippage in terms of
resources. A pro-active policy distinguished by adherence to the Rotterdam Charter, the creation of the Office
for Racial and Intercultural Affairs and the deployment of ELOs throughout the country has not been followed
up by the allocation of appropriate resources to deal with these challenges.
Finally and on a more general level, there is a lack of core research data which might enable us better to
understand the experience of minority ethnic groups in dealing with policing and justice issues generally. For
example, we need to know much more about how minority ethnic groups are treated at all stages of their
interaction with the criminal justice system, from arrest (are minority ethnic groups more likely to come under
suspicion?) to court appearance (are there differential patterns, for example, with regard to bail conditions?)
to sentencing and prison conditions (are minority ethnic group individuals over-represented in terms of the
likelihood or duration of custodial sentences? What about provision for the needs of minority ethnic groups
within the prison system?) to after-prison conditions. At present there are little or no data on these matters, but
experience in other countries would suggest that they need to be investigated.