RACISM IN Ireland is on the increase in part because of the recession, according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland, which yesterday marked its 10th anniversary.
Founder of the organisation Sr Stan Kennedy said there was a growing perception that “migrants are a threat to Ireland and the ‘native’ Irish, and are unfairly benefiting from Irish jobs, entitlements and public services”.
At a seminar in City Hall, Dublin, she said the increasing levels of racism emerging in recent times “can be attributed in part to such misconceptions”.
Racist abuse varied from spitting, pushing and beating people up to shouting and verbal abuse.
She said there was a lack of clarity on immigration policy, while the immigration system remained “chaotic, bureaucratic, cumbersome and lacking in transparency”.
The system was being reviewed by the Government, but there remained “a high level of discretion for the Minister for Justice”.
Former president Mary Robinson said negative attitudes to immigration were “dangerous and must not be tolerated in a civilised society”. She said this attitude “is often not based on a real threat to jobs or livelihoods, rather that when things are bad there is a temptation to look around for someone to blame”. While the boom was over, many migrants were now part of Irish society. “Immigrants are making a terrific contribution to Ireland’s economy and our society. That contribution must be celebrated and valued.”
Chief executive of the council Denise Charlton said Ireland had changed from a white, predominantly Catholic society to “something very different now”, and there were about 35,000 newly naturalised Irish citizens in the country and about 500,000 immigrants in total.
In some respects it was “increasingly a case of ‘them and us’ ”, and unless people changed their attitude and saw Ireland as a multicultural society, racism would remain a long-term problem.
Ms Charlton said Ireland was the only EU country without a family settlement system. The system as it stood was costly and inefficient and there was “no doubt some nationalities are treated very differently”.
She said five applicants meeting the exact same criteria could be treated very differently. It depended on the individual “who happens to be processing” the application.
Met Éireann weather forecaster Klara Finkele said it was the Irish community in Australia, “their sense of humour, way of living and what was important to them” that brought her to Ireland. Originally from Germany, she also lived in Australia and Belgium.
She said she felt at home within two weeks of arriving in Ireland. In Australia “everyone was from somewhere else”. When she arrived in 1998, Ireland was a “very monocultural place”, where people turned around if they heard her speaking German.
She believes the Irish experience of emigration makes them more tolerant. Irish people “let differences be. They are accepting of difference, although within a certain framework,” she said. “I speak English well and I’m white. I don’t know how it would be if I were black and spoke French.”
Entrepreneur Asheesh Dewan, who set up the Jaipur chain of six Indian restaurants, came to Ireland in 1996 from Dharamsala.
He believes immigration has come full circle in Ireland. When he arrived, “you went to Harcourt Street, they gave you a green book and called you an ‘alien’”. Four years later it had all changed. “The system and country were overwhelmed by migration services . . .
“Now there are no jobs and no money,” he said, while most of the migrants here now have settled. “People in Ireland are not inherently racist,” he added. If there are remarks, they speak “in anger” and from ignorance, not racism.
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