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

Conclusions
The Irish statutory sector has a number of characteristic features which mark it out from its UK equivalent. One
of the most significant is that a less comprehensive range of statutory services has been offered in Ireland and
a greater reliance has been placed on the voluntary sector. In the area of health services, a significant role is
played by faith-based service providers. Provision for education in Ireland is unique insofar as the majority of
schools have most of their running costs met by the State but are controlled by confessional management
boards. Moreover, legislation designed to protect the religious ethos of the school permits discrimination on
religious grounds in recruitment and other matters. Many other services are provided by a range of voluntary
bodies but significant state support has yet to be made available to organisations working with ethnic minority
groups. This lack of funding is a particular problem for ethnic and minority led organisations (MELOs).
237_Dr Mousajee Bhamjee,
born in South Africa and
of Indian descent, became
Ireland’s first Muslim TD
when he was elected in
1992 to the constituency of
Clare for the Labour Party.
238_See, for instance the
2005 report of the Equality
Authority:
www.equality.ie/index.asp
?locID=136&docID=536
launched on 8 May 2006.
Irish governance and practice has developed its own innovative approach to social partnership (referred to
above), a system of consultation and negotiation which embraces the Government, employers and trade
unions, agricultural interests and a number of key players from the community and voluntary sector. However, it
has yet to include ethnic minority group interests in any substantial way. Political debates to date have tended
to be reactive and focused on urgent issues of the day such as alleged exploitative practices by employers
rather than looking to a more long-term strategic approach, although this is changing.
Municipal and local authorities are key players in the UK. In Ireland, by contrast, the county, city and town
councils are not yet involved to a comparable degree. There has been some progress in recent years, notably
with the setting up of City and County Development Boards in the mid-1990s to ‘bring about an integrated
approach to the delivery of both state and local development services at local level’. The boards provide
a platform for all of the relevant players – the State, local government, social partners, local development
agencies such as area partnerships, EU Leader projects and city and county enterprise boards. A crosssectoral
approach to more effective service provision for minority ethnic groups could well be based on such
bodies.
In recent times only one TD from a minority ethnic background has been elected to the Dáil. 237 However, the
political system at local level is relatively open as the right to stand for election or to vote is not dependent on
migrant status. In most recent local elections in Ireland in 2004 two local councillors of immigrant backgrounds
were elected, in Portlaoise and Ennis respectively.
From the admittedly narrow point of view of service provision, it is suggested that the following might serve as a
useful agenda for action:
-
-
Individual discrimination against someone on any of the nine grounds covered in the legislation (gender;
marital status; family status; age; disability; race; sexual orientation; religious belief; membership of the
Traveller Community) is unacceptable. Yet a number of reports 238 and surveys carried out in Ireland in recent
years, as well as the NCCRI’s system for the reporting of racially motivated incidents, suggest that incidents
of individual racism and racial discrimination are common. Service providers need to implement appropriate
and effective policies including awareness training, information campaigns and enforcement mechanisms.
Service providers need to consider the extent to which they may need to vary the ways in which services
are delivered and whether these need to take cultural differences into account. One frequently hears the
assertion from frontline staff that ‘of course no-one should be discriminated against, but they are in this
country now and they have to learn how things are done here’. If we are to achieve an approach to service
provision which stresses equality but is flexible in delivery methods, we must address the specificities of the
needs of migrants and ethnic minorities – that is, those needs, over and above those of others who may
use the same services, which arise because they are members of migrant and ethnic minorities.