Free Radikal

Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’

On 20 April 2010 I attended a roundtable run by the Equality Authority in Dublin to discuss antiracism. While several of us attending have sat in similar roundtables and other forums for the past 15 years to discuss racism and antiracism, Toyosi Shitta-bey’s killing on Good Friday has clearly moved the EA - curtailed and under-funded though it is - to convene this forum, in a genuine attempt to mobilise members of migrant and ethnic minority groups.

The main speakers were, as usual, white, settled Irish people, but around the table were leaders of migrant-led groups and networks (mostly Africans, with scant representation for Asians and Eastern Europeans, and only one Traveller, Ellen Mongan, the only Traveller who has ever sat on a local authority council). Everyone was asked to speak, and participants outlined their experiences of racism, and spoke of the anger and fear in their groups and neighbourhoods. A few  ‘usual suspects’ proposed what has been proposed so many times before: establishing an antiracism forum,  reforming the useless 1989 Incitement to Hatred Act (promised so many time by successive ministers for justice),  educating and holding information campaigns ( the government has clamped down on public awareness campaigns, but  one wonder were these ever really useful?) Read the rest of this entry »

Since the onset of the recession, it became clear that the state’s integration policies and all the talk about ‘cultural diversity’, ‘interculturalism’ and so on were becoming redundant. What started with draconian cuts in the integration and antiracism sector and the demise of bodies such as the NCCRI very quickly turned into complete silence on the subjects of immigration, integration, and interculturalism, and culminated with the axing of many community development projects. The new Minister for Integration was nowhere to be seen, and even though the government was boasting that Ireland was ‘getting it right’ by avoiding the pitfalls of both (French) assimilationism and (British) multiculturalism, it became clear that in the recession the state was not interested in migrants, no longer seen as the engine of Ireland’s economic boom.

In recent days the media reported somewhat triumphantly that ‘foreign nationals’ were going home. Using PPS statistics, a downward trend was reported across the workforce. According to December 2009 CSO figures, ‘57,112 of the 117,983 foreign nationals who received PPSNs in 2004 were still either working or claiming welfare in 2008’. In the absence of statistics for those who actually left Ireland, it was less clear ‘what happened to the rest, but it is very likely that they left the Republic’. Read the rest of this entry »

A letter I sent to the Irish Times on 24 December 2009

Madam

Fintan O’Toole’s (spot-on as ever) article on the ironies of the Bishops’ multiculturalism (December 22, 2009, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1222/1224261109443.html) has broader ironic implications.

One irony relates to the church’s role in migrant integration. Having lost their key role in education and health service provision, Catholic religious orders have been working with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. While extremely useful, many of the projects initiated by relilgious orders are run by white, Christian, settled Irish people, without giving leadership roles to migrants and other racialised people. This top down, and at time destructive approach means that migrants have little say in how these organisations are
funded and run. Read the rest of this entry »

Paddy Healy published addresses of TDs, asking people to email their TDs protesting the budget. So this is what I just sent to Chris Andrews (Fianna Fail) and John Gormley (Green Party):

Dear John and Chris

As your constituent, let me express my revulsion at the budget which has targeted the poorest and weakest in society.

As a public sector worker, I accept that high earners should bear the brunt, but introducing an extra income tax band for those earning over €100,000 (a category, which,  by the way, includes me) would have brought €2bn in revenue without cutting disability and unemployment allowances, children’s allowances and taxing low paid workers. Read the rest of this entry »

Copy of a letter I sent to the Irish Times:

Ronit Lentin
Department of Sociology
TCD

Madam,

The shortsightedness of the government’s plans to subsume community development projects in area partnerships (Letters, 25 November) was eloquently articulated by four community activists on Vincent Browne’s TV3 show on the same day. Cathleen O’Neill of Kilbarrack CDP, Rita Fagan of St Michael’s Family Resource Centre, Bronagh O’Neill of the Canal Equality Campaign and Margaret O’Shea of the Kerry Network for People with Disabilities highlighted the services CDPs provide, often by volunteers, to their communities, and the loss to theses communities of taking the projects away from the people they are serving. The transfer to area partnerships has been decided upon without consultation and it is evident that now more than ever CDPs are both ‘good value’ and essential in providing services such as childcare, after school care, programmes for women and disabled people, not provided by the state and local authorities. Read the rest of this entry »