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Equality is not a concession or a privilege. No person, organisation or public body has the right to treat someone as a second class citizen. Whether discrimination is deliberate or not, the denial of someone's right to be treated equally is illegal. People now have the right to challenge discrimination and denial of equality of opportunity.
The Equality
Duty This legislation is one of the ways someone can challenge the denial of their right to equality. The Equality Duty is founded in Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (1998) and requires public bodies such as Assembly departments and other agencies to promote equality of opportunity. A public body can no longer simply say that they have not discriminated against someone. They now have to actively promote equality and then actually prove that they are doing just that. Most importantly of all, they must fulfil their commitment to equality in public, which means:
Which Public Bodies
have to Promote Equality? These public bodies are defined in law, with the British Secretary of State having the power to decide which public bodies must promote equality of opportunity. Some important public bodies, such as the BBC and IDB, have not been so defined and therefore have no legal responsibility for promoting equality for all citizens. Private companies, such as Shorts and Harland & Wolfe, do not have to abide by the Equality Duty and in many of these private companies discrimination continues, despite existing anti-discrimination legislation.
Many people experience the denial of equality on the grounds of religious belief and/or political opinion. Political discrimination is one area where the current law still permits those bodies determined to discriminate to deny people their right to equality. Women continue to suffer discrimination in employment and other areas of life. People with disabilities face many obstacles in achieving equality of treatment. Older people and gay men and women face discrimination in the social and economic arenas. Racism is an ever-present problem for many groups in the north of Ireland, such as Travellers, the Chinese and other ethnic minority groups. Achieving equality of opportunity can be difficult for people with dependants and people without. Under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act all of these groups of people must be afforded equality of opportunity and public bodies cannot discriminate against them. However, this will only work if people exercise their right to complain about discrimination and the denial of equality. Each complaint must be dealt with seriously and given a response within a reasonable period of time. People can complain directly to the department or public body concerned, or directly to the Equality Commission, which is responsible for investigating complaints brought to its attention. For further information, advice or assistance, those in the north of Ireland should contact: West Belfast Economic Forum
Catholics still losing out on jobs As part of a new series on equality issues, Jarlath Kearney speaks to Una Gillespie A leading anti-discrimination campaigner has declared that senior civil servants and key elements in the Northern Ireland Office are overseeing a campaign of “institutional resistance” against equality measures throughout the North. And – in the first of a series of Andersonstown News reports on equality and human rights issues – Una Gillespie has demanded key improvements to the powers and resources of the Equality Commission, as well as tough new regulations for the implementation of public equality duties throughout the Civil Service, public bodies and the community sector. In her first interview since being appointed a member of the Equality Commission last month, the West Belfast Economic Forum Co-ordinator slammed what she described as “systematic attempts to roll back on the modest moves towards equality that were being achieved during the 1990s”. Una’s scathing remarks come in the same week as latest government Labour Force Survey figures. These figures reveal that – despite the moves recommended in the Good Friday Agreement – there has been no change in the differential between the numbers of unemployed Catholics and Protestants. For three decades, Catholics have been at least two times more likely than Protestants to be unemployed, with Catholic males always faring worse than females. This key statistic has been consistently highlighted as evidence of the need for effective affirmative action processes to redress the imbalance, in terms of tackling communal deprivation, low levels of investment and job discrimination (both direct and indirect). The statistics prompted angry responses from both Sinn Féin and the SDLP, who accused the British government of reneging on key commitments given during political negotiations. “Too often we are told that religious inequality in the workforce is a thing of the past. These figures give lie to that myth. “Until such time as Protestants and Catholics have the same chance of finding a job, there will never be true equality in our society,” blasted the SDLP’s Chairperson, Patricia Lewsley. Sinn Féin Equality spokesperson, Caitriona Ruane, also demanded urgent action to tackle the issue. “There are clear commitments within the Good Friday Agreement to eradicate the differential between the communities but nothing has been done to make any impact. “This report is also, of course, a timely reminder for those unionist politicians and British direct rule ministers who regularly attempt to revise history and pretend that discrimination in employment is a thing of the past. It is not and it needs addressed urgently,” added Catriona Ruane. Commenting on the latest figures, Una Gillespie pointed out that while the ratio of Catholic unemployed to Protestant unemployed has not changed at all in ten years, the position of Catholic females has actually worsened. “The facts are that more Catholics have been able to gain employment in the last ten years, but not at a rate that is in any way commensurate with the growth of the Catholic population. “So while new trends may show an increase in Catholic employment throughout the public and private sector, the fact is that the levels, salaries and socio-economic classifications of Catholics are all lower than Protestants. “In the Joint Declaration there was a commitment from both governments to commission research to deal with the unemployment differential, but absolutely nothing has happened in relation to that. “Taken together with the fact that Catholics still remain two times more likely than Protestants to be unemployed – with Catholic female unemployment actually increasing disproportionately – the indicators point undeniably to the conclusion that the Catholic community is still not represented equally in terms of economic equality. “New legislation has maybe got employers to clean up their act a bit in relation to making overt job discrimination more difficult and giving a semblance of equality of opportunity, but that does not mean equality of outcome exists. “In broader terms, when one looks at Targeting Social Need (TSN), the evidence is that while policies might be positive on paper, if the will and the resources are not forthcoming from government, then such programmes are merely cosmetic – which, of course, has been the British government and NIO’s policy approach to the issue of economic discrimination throughout the lifetime of the state,” said Una. As someone who analyses economic discrimination in the broadest sense, Una demanded greater powers and improved resources for the Equality Commission. “Bodies like the Equality Commission have a moral obligation to make sure that the tools are there to tackle inequality and that those tools are rigorously enforced. “Therefore, I believe it is up to government departments who have signed up to the Programme for Government and Section 75 to properly put their shoulders to the wheel – that is, if they’re sincere about the need to eradicate discrimination and inequality. “Unfortunately, the indications appear to be that powerful civil servants and policy-makers in the NIO are more concerned with obstructing the equality agenda and forcing campaigners into endless rounds of consultations and talking shops, than actively addressing the core problems. “But the reality is that the Single Equality Bill promised in the Good Friday Agreement won’t be out until at least 2008 – and that’s being optimistic – which is ten years after the Agreement, 20 years after the 1989 Fair Employment Act and over 30 years after the 1976 Fair Employment Act. “The danger is that this legislation will just cobble together existing legislation and regulations and provisions without strengthening and improving any of them. That would be utterly unacceptable to anti-discrimination campaigners,” warned Una. “There are currently increasingly sophisticated attempts by civil servants to push the facts of discrimination and the need for urgent equality measures off the agenda to the extent that they are barely mentioned. “But the facts are that the statistics haven’t changed. The enforcement and sanction measures are not in place. And the confidence of certain civil servants in trying to manipulate – if not ignore – the legislation to suit their own agenda is on a worrying increase. “Through my work at local level and my membership of the Equality Commission, I will ensure that these issues stay on the agenda,” added Una.
Affirmative Action In the second in our series of reports on equality issues, Jarlath Kearney reveals that the PSNI is failing to implement basic equality measures to address Catholic under-representation across the force The PSNI will not be introducing any affirmative action scheme to address the ‘retention, promotion or deployment’ of under-represented Catholics within the force, the Andersonstown News can reveal. And, despite the fact that the PSNI collates detailed data about the “representation of women within individual DCUs and departments”, a PSNI spokesperson said yesterday that similar statistical data outlining the under-representation of Catholics across the force is “not available”. The revelations come just a week after the PSNI launched its new Gender Action Plan (GAP), which is intended to address the under-representation of women. The GAP was prepared between November 2003 and September 2004, and has now been endorsed by the Policing Board and the Equality Commission. A number of potentially far-reaching recommendations are made in the GAP, including the introduction of welcoming statements for females in specialist units, the production of action plans by specialist unit commanders to address under representation, investigating the possibility of a women only leadership programme, and instigating qualitative research into the promotion process (including investigating barriers). One of the key aspects of last week’s report was the publication – for the first time ever – of statistical breakdowns relating to the deployment of female PSNI members throughout the force. These statistics provided unprecedented detailed information about gender breakdown in terms of initial recruitment and deployment by District Command Unit, as well as membership of each department (focusing in detail on Crime Operations Department), each function/specialism, and each promotional rank. The GAP Working Party produced its report in the context of a ‘vision’ in which the PSNI will now seek to ‘recruit, retain, promote and deploy females’ throughout the force. Such an affirmative action approach – focusing holistically on recruitment, retention, promotion and deployment – is the essence of modern-day personnel recruitment practice. This approach is, of course, particularly relevant when a public institution like the PSNI/RUC has been historically under-represented in terms of a particular societal sector, in this instance – women. However, in a significant development, it has now emerged that the PSNI has no intention of introducing any similar strategic action plan to tackle the under-representation of Catholics – either by reference to ‘retention, promotion or deployment’. And a PSNI spokesperson said yesterday that the force does “not keep figures to DCU or department level for the breakdown of Catholic and non-Catholic officers” and it only engages in “service-wide monitoring” of Catholic under-representation. “A statistical breakdown of Catholic and non-Catholic police officers by DCU, department or specialism is not available. “We collate figures for the representation of women within individual DCUs and departments. This information allows the Police Service to address any under-representation of female officers within a particular area. “The issue of the representation of Catholics has been and continues to be addressed successfully by the 50:50 scheme,” the PSNI spokesperson told the Andersonstown News yesterday. This statement raises the prospect that any PSNI member who is both male and Catholic could now argue a case of institutionalised discrimination against the force on the grounds of gender and religion – comparing one policy approach with the other. It also raises wider questions about the structural resistance within both the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Office (in its administrative oversight capacity) to wholeheartedly addressing the under-representation of Catholics throughout every sector and department of the force. As previously revealed by this newspaper, the NIO has taken a highly partial and selective approach to the presentation of statistics relating to Catholic recruitment within the PSNI. This tactic has taken the form of publicising only the number of Catholic officers within the Regular PSNI – completely disregarding the sizeable PSNI Reserve – and thereby deliberately over-inflating the percentage of Catholic representation in the force. Key agencies such as the PSNI and the Policing Board have followed the questionable lead of the NIO in this regard. The associated failure of the PSNI to specifiy the extent and level of Catholic under-representation across DCUs, functions/specialisms, departments and ranks can only be seen in that context. As evidenced last week, there are those within the PSNI and NIO who were very keen to be seen promoting the concept of equality at every level – when it relates to gender. Yet the same officials are adamantly opposed to introducing modest affirmative action measurements and schemes when they relate to tackling severe religious imbalances. Based on current estimates it will be two decades before overall Catholic representation in the force – through entry at Constable level – will broadly reflect wider societal trends. How long it will take before those Catholics are spread equally and evenly across the force is a matter of speculation. As to the key issue of political and class representativeness throughout the PSNI, this issue is still in the lap of the gods – as well as the current political negotiations. But even a decision by republicans to cross that Rubicon would remain an academic development if nationalist politicians and the Irish government can’t measure the current level of Catholic under-representation throughout the force. If its house is in order, what has the PSNI got to fear from such a process?
No Change In the third of our series on equality issues, Jarlath Kearney explores the issue of security vetting by the NIO The Andersonstown News has learned that security vetting procedures currently being used in the Northern Ireland Civil Service have not been subjected to any kind of ‘equality-screening’ or Equality Impact Assessment. This means that there is no information available as to whether security vetting procedures adversely impact on any section of the community. It is almost two years since the British government announced its decision to review the arrangements for the security vetting of government employees in the North. The brief announcement by the Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, on December 12, 2002, stated that the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) would lead a review team including senior representatives of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the PSNI. Significantly, no external groups – such as the Equality Commission, the Human Rights Commissioners, the Civil Service Commissioners, or the trade unions – were brought into the review team. “The review will report to me with recommendations and a plan for their implementation. I will inform the House (of Commons) of the outcome,” said Mr Murphy. Two years on, the NIO last night stated that the review is ongoing with no end date in sight. However, on December 15 last year – exactly one year after the review commenced – the Security Minister Jane Kennedy announced that “an initial programme of reform is under way to improve the effectiveness of current protective security arrangements across the Northern Ireland Office, the Northern Ireland Departments, PSNI, and associated bodies.” She went on: “These protective security arrangements will be kept under regular review. Future security vetting policy changes will be screened for their impact on equality, and where necessary subject to formal equality impact assessment.” That assurance has not yet been fulfilled. And the Andersonstown News now understands that a key element of the ‘rolling review’ has focused on the work of a relatively unknown office at the heart of the Northern Ireland Office. The Security Vetting Unit (SVU) is located within the Central Services Division of the Central Services Directorate of the NIO. And although the VSU is one of the most significant offices affecting government in the North, it is also one of the least prominent. Essentially, the SVU acts as a ‘clearing-house’ to security-vet the suitability of both recruits and current employees in the Civil and Public Services. Each government department and agency currently has a particular security vetting level against which all staff are scrutinised. At present all recruits to the Civil Service are ‘basic-checked’ on a pre-employment basis by the Recruitment Service to ensure that their identification and qualifications are genuine. Subsequent security vetting can then take the form of credit-checks, reference checks and personal interviews. And in the event that staff members are employed within a department, agency or unit that has a security classification, the employee is then invited to fill in a security questionnaire. All of this subsequent security vetting activity is undertaken by the SVU. But although staffed by civil servants, the Andersonstown News has established that the SVU deals directly with the PSNI when checking the background of an individual. According to a PSNI organisational chart for Crime Operations Department, vetting falls within the ambit of Special Branch. This procedure means that the PSNI Crime Operations Department plays a key role in formulating the SVU’s assessment of any civil or public servant’s suitability for employment, where that involves a security classified position. Crucially, the disqualification of a recruit or employee from holding a post on the grounds of security vetting is not subject to any challenge under fair employment legislation. This is because the NIO – in drawing up all the fair employment legislation since 1976 – has consistently included an exemption permitting discrimination by official agencies on security grounds. Recent academic research published by the Equality Commission states that security-exempted discrimination has affected Catholics to a greater degree than Protestants. And given the consistently high levels of Catholic under-representation within the NIO, the Senior Civil Service and the PSNI, security vetting has clearly been a significant contributory factor. The fact that the Crime Operations Department (and indeed British Intelligence) plays a key role in supplying information to the SVU is also highly significant, and may provide the context in which the British government is refusing to lift the ban on Irish nationals from gaining employment in the Civil Service. Since there are currently no grounds for challenging discrimination on security grounds, and the NIO has yet to equality-screen its own procedures, the implications for future recruitment of nationalists and republicans in the North’s Public and Civil Services – including agencies like the Policing Board – are profound. Last night all an NIO spokesperson would say was “consideration will be given to undertaking an equality assessment on completion of the security vetting review”.
Rolling back the years Jarlath Kearney continues his series on the equality agenda The British government is currently attempting to introduce changes which will see future government resources in the North divided not on the basis of need, but because of a political decision to roll back the equality agenda. That’s the belief of key community workers across West Belfast regarding current developments related to issues such as the Anti-Poverty Strategy, the review of the Targeting Social Need (TSN) programme and the review of Deprivation Indicators. One of the key changes in this area would see ‘Weak Community Infrastructure’ introduced as an official indicator of deprivation, thereby requiring extra government resources to address the perceived need in that area. Nationalist community workers are particularly suspicious of this proposal because they argue it appears to be a crude but effective device to include loyalist areas – which are not objectively suffering from deprivation – within the ambit of additional government funding and resources. Bizarrely, if this proposal becomes embedded, it could actually mean that some nationalist areas will be excluded from much-needed funding simply because the community sector is well organised. Indeed, this controversial criterion is already being used to assess grant applications under the Local Community Fund. Targeting Social Need – which is also now under review – was an over-arching British government policy introduced to the North in 1991 supposedly to tackle social need by skewing government resources in favour of the most disadvantaged people, groups and locations. Following its abject failure to impact on high levels of Catholic inequality, the programme was re-launched as New TSN in 1998. However, despite minor improvements, New TSN was found to be more of a Civil Service paper exercise than an effective programme for change on the ground. The British government’s consistent failure to put in place policies which would stringently force the Civil Service to skew resources to the areas of greatest need led to the issue becoming a key focus in the multi-party negotiations. This prompted both governments to announce as part of the Joint Declaration in July 2003 that the British would “aim to publish proposals for future direction of NTSN in October”. The British government didn’t get around to publishing those proposals until April 2004 – six months late. And exactly a year later in October 2004 – 18 months after the Joint Declaration – the British government has just closed its ‘consultation’ on its proposals. By any objective standards the British government approach has not been designed to fast-track improvements to TSN. In its examination of the new proposals the independent umbrella body – Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) – pointed out that “there appears to be a shift in emphasis in the new policy away from issues of equality and inequality towards specific hardship groups such as lone parents and disabled people. “Similarly there is a change in priority away from disadvantaged areas towards individuals and groups. “Clearly, it is important to focus on very disadvantaged groups, but it is also necessary to consider the structure of our society and the inherent inequalities that exist,” wrote NICVA. The fact that such a high-profile and independent organisation as NICVA has expressed concern about the British government’s attempts to ignore structural and historical differentials between both the Catholic and Protestant communities is a highly significant development. This British government shift on TSN dovetails with the controversial attempts by some in the Human Rights Commission to introduce new religious monitoring procedures of employees under the as yet unpublished Bill of Rights, which would focus on individual rather than community background. Official statistics and measurements would still be available, but they wouldn’t focus on the indices that currently expose glaring examples of structural inequality, such as the fact that Catholics continue to be two times more likely than Protestants to be unemployed. This strategy would ensure that the concept of state-sponsored discrimination in the North could be conveniently shelved in light of the government’s new-found determination to tackle ‘poverty’. Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on equality, Catríona Ruane MLA, yesterday told the Andersonstown News that “the measuring and tracking of multiple deprivation over time is essential in order to measure policy outcomes”. “If policies are successful a reduction in levels of deprivation should be apparent. “Thus multiple deprivation measures cannot be operated in isolation and need to be viewed in tandem with equality legislation, policies such as NTSN, an anti-poverty strategy, a fuel poverty strategy and so forth. “There also needs to be clear linkages between departments, and a consistency and standardisation in the approach to tackling objective need, deprivation, inequality and poverty. “Indicators of multiple deprivation will inform departments where they need to skew resources on the basis of objective need and in line with their statutory equality requirements,” said Catríona Ruane.
Vote early, vote often In the latest in our series of articles on equality issues, Jarlath Kearney looks at the ongoing discriminatory impact of the Electoral Fraud Act Last Monday afternoon the Sinn Féin Chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin met with Northern Ireland Office (NIO) Minister John Spellar to discuss the impact on the electoral process brought about by the Electoral Fraud Act 2002. Ironically, the meeting came just days after the NIO concluded that the controversial new legislation – which it essentially created – does not adversely affect any section of society. The NIO’s final draft Equality Impact Assessment on the new legislation, which was published last week, states that the law “did not have a direct adverse impact” on any section of society, as specified under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Section 75 was a new measure introduced following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement commitments to promoting equality in the policies and practices of public agencies and government departments. It focuses on the way in which nine different sectors of society can be affected on equality grounds, defined by the following: religious belief; political opinion; racial group; age; marital status; sexual orientation; gender; disability; dependants. In this context the NIO’s decision to stand over its own legislation is not only ironic, but it is also questionable on equality grounds. The Electoral Fraud Act has had a huge impact on the electoral process in the North. It was introduced ostensibly to prevent alleged voting fraud that was widely attributed to Sinn Féin by British government representatives, party political opponents and some sections of the media. Yet the objective evidence in any elections since the new law came into force has revealed that Sinn Féin’s vote is consistently rising, leaving the British government with a dilemma of its own making. On the one hand Sinn Féin has not been severely damaged by the tough new restrictions on voting (thereby scotching the myth of organised electoral fraud by the party); yet on the other hand, there has clearly been a massive impact on minority sectors of society throughout the North. That fact is evidenced by the findings of a report by the electoral watchdog, the Electoral Commission, which was published in December 2003. In its report on the effects of the new law, the Electoral Commission reached a series of definitive conclusions. It found that a number of groups “appeared to be significantly under-represented” on the register following the new law. In terms of a decline in registration, six of the top ten wards were in the constituency of West Belfast. Almost one third of 18-24 year-olds were not registered to vote, with non-registration in this age group almost twice the North’s average. And crucially, the Electoral Commission report stated that there was a correlation between areas of low registration and areas of high deprivation – “the greater the incidence of deprivation, the larger the percentage decline on the register”, the Commission reported. Such findings by an independent agency only serve to confirm the widespread anecdotal evidence – covered in detail by this newspaper – of groups, sectors and individuals whose right to vote was adversely affected by the new legislation. There is, therefore, clearly a discrepancy between the experience of citizens (supported by the findings of the Electoral Commission) and the position adopted by the NIO that its legislation is not discriminatory. The NIO’s implicit explanation for this discrepancy is revealing. “Although the NIO does not believe that there is evidence of any adverse impact on any of the section 75 groups arising from the policies put in place by the Electoral Fraud Act, this assessment has highlighted a degree of concern – relating to some of the nine groups in respect of a number of operational issues relating to registration and voting more generally. “There is no clear evidence, however, that the Electoral Fraud Act has been responsible for disadvantaging any particular group in Northern Ireland from participating fully in the electoral process,” wrote the NIO last week. This attempt to draw a distinction between the introduction of the Electoral Fraud Act and the subsequent operation of that law, divests the NIO of any responsibility for any attendant discriminatory outcomes. In many ways, nationalists will argue that this is an outworking of the NIO’s ideological position of giving lip service to ‘equality of opportunity’ whilst placing obstacles in the way of ‘equality of outcome’. In this example, every sector of society has (on paper) the ‘opportunity’ to try and exercise their democratic franchise, but whether that is the ‘outcome’ – following the organisational, institutional, personal and practical obstacles brought about by the new law – is another issue, which the NIO argues is not its problem. In the view of nationalists, this is precisely the same mentality which the NIO brings in relation to other touchstone issues of equality, such as anti-Catholic job discrimination. Despite 30 years of ‘fair employment’ legislation, the reality is that job discrimination – through crude mechanisms like vetting – alongside unfair differentials in unemployment, continues to plague deprived sections of the Catholic community in the North. Likewise, the harsh reality that the SDLP lost 100,000 votes between the 1999 and the 2004 European elections cannot be divorced from the discriminatory effects of the Electoral Fraud Act 2002. Following his meeting with John Spellar on Monday, Sinn Féin’s Mitchel McLaughlin alluded to this worrying trend. “Since the new electoral legislation was introduced in May 2002, almost 200,000 people have been removed from the electoral register and this has damaged the electoral process. “Sinn Féin believe that this downward trend has been embedded in the registration process and that only legislative change will rectify the situation. “The result has been discrimination on a massive scale. That is unacceptable. People’s rights must be restored,” he said.
Redressing the Inequalities: Why we Need Equality Legislation Sinn Féin National Chairperson Mitchel Mc Laughlin MLA, today spoke at a conference at the Hilton Hotel in Belfast entitled “Fair Employment in Northern Ireland: a Generation on”. Full text of Mr Mc Laughlin’s Speech: An opinion prevails that we in the north of Ireland are at the ‘cutting edge’ of fair employment legislation and ‘innovative’ in the field of equality. The reality is of course different and it should be remembered that every single piece of equality legislation had to be fought for, often in the face of indifference, intransigence and foot-dragging. Instead of complacency there should be an acknowledgement of the inherent limitations and lack of political will within the system to advance the equality and anti-discrimination agenda. The key determinant of the success or otherwise of anti-discrimination legislation is whether it is making a tangible difference on the ground. It is Sinn Féin’s view that it has not and that we are still a long way from achieving equality of opportunity never mind equality of outcome. Fair Employment Debate The Fair Employment debate has been characterised by disagreement over the nature and extent of discrimination. Some commentators would generally refuse to acknowledge that structural discrimination ever existed although others have been prepared to concede that some isolated incidents of discrimination may have occurred in the past. Of course, the next step in this argument is that the past is the past; things are different now and let’s move on. It is my view that structural discrimination against Catholics and nationalists in the north of Ireland has occurred and still occurs. The statistics show that discrimination and disadvantage are current realities that require urgent solutions. Redressing the Inequalities: Why we need equality legislation Nationalists fare badly across every indicator of deprivation. In Sinn Féin’s view this is no accident. It is symptomatic of the nature of the state and patterns of discrimination and disadvantage are continuing. Nationalist Under-Representation in the Workforce Monitoring figures from the Equality Commission show that the steady increase in Catholic participation in the workforce of approximately 0.5% per annum which occurred throughout the 1990s has since levelled off. Catholic representation in the private sector is less than 40%, and in firms with more than 25 employees there has been a decline [Equality Commission, Monitoring Report No. 13]. Monitoring data also demonstrates Catholic under-representation in public and private sector employment relative to their proportion of the economically active population. While there is an increase in the Catholic share of employment, that share is still below the Catholic proportion of the economically active and the gap has grown since 1971, as census figures show:
Unemployment Differential The 'Unemployment Differential' is regarded as a key indicator of the effectiveness or otherwise of anti-discrimination measures. The ratio of Catholic to Protestant unemployment rates has varied over the past number of years. In general Catholic male unemployment rates have run at between two or two and a half times that of Protestant males. The latest Labour Force Survey figures just published (October 2004) which cover 2002 show that the unemployment rate for Catholics was 8.1% against 4.35% for Protestants. Thus despite the introduction of supposedly tougher fair employment legislation, initiatives such as ‘old’ and ‘new’ TSN, and a commitment by the British government in the Good Friday Agreement to ‘progressively eliminate the differential in unemployment rates’ there has been no tangible improvement in the unemployment differential rates between Protestants and Catholics. On top of this Catholics are still less likely to be in employment, more likely to be unemployed, at greater risk of living in lower income households and/or being dependent on benefits as well as at greater risk of experiencing multiple deprivation. New TSN policy is only having a 'modest' impact on the differential in unemployment rates between the two communities. Conclusions It is clear that we are still a long way from achieving fair participation in the workplace as well as equal distribution of resources. We have had more than 30 years of fair employment and equality measures supposedly designed to eliminate discrimination and inequality in the north of Ireland. And what has been the result? Across all the indicators of deprivation nationalists continually suffer the worst disadvantage. It is clear that we live in an unequal society. A realistic approach to eradicating inequality must be taken. Yes, there has been some improvement but not enough. The problems have long been identified. We know that those who suffer from unemployment, particularly the long-term unemployed, suffer from multiple effects of poverty. We know that nationalists suffer disproportionate disadvantage across all the indicators. We know that there are pockets of unionist disadvantage which need tackled also. We know, from Noble, the location of the most disadvantaged areas and the subsequent strategic investment required to uplift these areas. We know that the areas, which suffered the greatest conflict, suffer from the highest levels of poverty and inequality. Instead of pretending that the fair employment issue is resolved it is high time to implement radical change. Sinn Féin has some suggestions. Recommendations: Monitoring It is clearly necessary to retain and strengthen fair employment policies and the targeting of resources on the basis of objective need. Monitoring is a necessary tool to track changes and inform policy. Monitoring and implementation policies need improved. The Labour Force Survey, for example, has too small a sample while the basic annual workplace monitoring and the Article 55 reviews every three years are of little value if the Equality Commission does not have the resources to analyse and act on the information collected. Improved monitoring should also include cases taken to Fair Employment Tribunals and their outcomes broken down by category and made freely available to the public. This would track patterns that have emerged from the cases taken under the legislation, the number of cases lodged, proportion of findings of discrimination, average figures for settlements, recommendations made by the Tribunal etc. There is a need to monitor the impact of ‘chill factors’ on employment patterns, particularly the extent to which these exist in a post-conflict context. Research suggests that there is greater inequality in smaller workforces that currently fall below the threshold for compulsory monitoring, i.e., less than 10 employees. New TSN should be placed on a statutory footing. The impact, or lack thereof, of initiatives such as New TSN on religious and political inequality must be assessed and more stringent targets set. For example, there has been a consistent failure to bring investors into specifically targeted TSN areas. Instead, the designation 'in or adjacent to TSN areas' is being used. This has the effect of making TSN areas so geographically wide as to render the definition virtually meaningless while at the same time DETI and INI claim to be adhering to and surpassing TSN obligations. Political Ex-Prisoners One of the important commitments entered into by the two Governments in the GFA was to support the resettlement of prisoners following release. This has not happened. There is a particular responsibility on us all to secure equality for all affected by conflict be they victims or ex-prisoners. As part of its equality agenda, Sinn Féin wishes to see all historic inequalities dealt with. This should include the achievement of full citizenship for political ex-prisoners. Legal Assistance for Cases Support for individual cases needs to be reinstated either by providing the Equality Commission with the necessary financial resources or by making legal aid available for discrimination cases. The ability of individuals to initiate legal action against those who discriminate or who allow harassment/discrimination to go unchecked must be an ongoing and effective weapon in any strategy of anti-discrimination legislation. Equality Commission We need an improved Equality Commission with more powers and resources and, crucially, the determination to use them. Sinn Féin, along with other organisations working in the equality field, have become increasingly concerned that the Equality Commission itself is becoming part of the institutional resistance to meaningful change. The manner in which it dealt with the legal assistance issue, for example, caused huge concern. Another concern is around how the Commission is handling Schedule 9, Paragraph 11 investigations. Since its foundation the Commission has been reluctant to use this power and has only begun to do so because interested organisations, including Sinn Féin, have asked the Equality Commission to undertake investigations of public bodies for their failure to comply with an equality scheme. This has raised questions around the Commission’s own commitment to vigorous equality enforcement. Sinn Féin wants to work with others, with the Equality Commission, with government departments, with the equality constituencies to bring about a truly fair, more equal society. Yet, we find ourselves increasingly frustrated by the institutional resistance to equality. Our frustrations and concerns are shared by many that work in this field. The key question lies around the effectiveness of the equality tools – the legislation, the Equality Commission, EQIA's etc - as a means of remedying inequality in our society. To paraphrase: “Some work done: lots more to do”.
Unemployment figures static for last 30 years REVEALED Government figures show Catholics still twice as likely to be on dole Catholic women are three and a half times more likely to be unemployed than Protestant women in the North.
Nationalists Still Getting Raw Deal Sinn Fein's Mitchel McLaughlin says new figures highlighting the inequality suffered by nationalists are completely unacceptable.
Top trade unionist says state promotes sectarian bigotry One of Ireland’s leading trade unionists has accused the British government of promoting sectarianism in the North. Inez McCormack, a former president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, also claimed that the British government had tried to destroy equality legislation introduced after the Good Friday Agreement. She claimed British ministers and civil servants were refusing to take responsibility for pervasive inequality in the North and had set out to “redefine inequality as being a result of socially deprived people not being ‘tolerant enough’.” Mrs McCormack said the British government’s central policy document, A Shared Future — Policy and Strategic Framework for Good Relations in Northern Ireland, had falsely concluded that economic and social inequality between nationalists and unionists was no longer an issue and that levels of social deprivation were an ongoing consequence of intolerance demonstrated by the two communities. The document was published by the British government in March 2005. It was evidence, she added, that the fight for equality had been “hijacked by the community relations agenda”. The civil rights activist was speaking at the 14th Frank Cahill lecture at Belfast’s Conway Mill, organised by the West Belfast Economic Forum as part of this year’s Féile an Phobail series of events. Addressing a packed hall of 200 people, she said the government and those in positions of power within the North’s civil service were still “asking the dispossessed to prove their humanity before deciding whether to recognise their rights”. She said: “All the social indicators featured in recent government reports show that inequality between the two communities still remains and that gulf between rich and poor in the North was increasing yet, eight years after the Good Friday Agreement, senior civil servants and ministers are attempting to marginalise those attempting to bring about justice and change.” The social campaigner, who later resigned in protest from the Equality Commission, claimed that, during the months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, while a solicitor was drawing up the section 75 equality legislation that was to form part of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, senior civil servants had held 39 meetings to discuss ways to weaken the legislation. “They held these meetings to make sure certain words, like ‘due process’, were left out of section 75. “They wanted the legislation to be rendered meaningless,” she said. Mrs McCormack said it was only after she had held an emergency meeting with then US president Bill Clinton, who agreed to lobby the British government over the issue, that the language of the agreement was translated into effective legislation designed to promote equality. “These same civil servants have, for the last eight years, attempted to unravel equality legislation, consistently reinforcing structural inequality when investing public money in infrastructure and development projects,” she added. She also condemned as “sectarian, incompetent, irresponsible and extremely destructive” the setting up of a task force to address the social needs of loyalist communities in the North. In April this year, direct-rule minister David Hanson launched the Renewing Communities proposal in response to a task force report published on the needs of Protestant communities. The package included measures valued at £33 million (€49 million). “To justify this sectarianisation of poverty by openly arguing that Protestants need more financial help because Catholics know how to ‘work the system better’ and were more used to being poor reinforces every prejudice and fear that a young loyalist may have harboured about his Catholic neighbour. “Government ministers, by legitimising this crap, are basically saying: ‘Yes, all your fears are right about Catholics.’ “Could you imagine this being said about African-Americans in the southern states of America? “Perpetuating this myth is the most irresponsible sectarianism I have ever heard,” she said. Mrs McCormack said the basic problem facing society in the North was a “mindset of comfort” that refused at all costs to acknowledge that it was continuing to reinforce cultural and economic inequality. She said the British government was closing Belfast community organisations and initiatives simply because this mindset was being challenged.
Equality and all that The following article appeared in the 14th June edition of An Phoblacht: The Mary Nelis Column Yes it will be a battle a day, and the battle lines are already drawn. The Sinn Féin motion to the Assembly proposing the establishment of a working party to examine the question of the under representation of women in that male dominated establishment was rejected and instead members voted in favour of a DUP amendment encouraging gender equality, something that unionists of whatever hue have singularly failed to embrace with the exception of the politically rich DUP husband and wife teams. Nor was it surprising that another Sinn Féin motion supporting the introduction of a single equality bill to replace the existing ineffectual legislation was also defeated by unionists. Equality is the last thing that Unionist will sign up to for. Experience has shown that equality is never given voluntarily by those who have for all of their political existence, perpetuated inequality. Gregory Campbell claimed in the recent debate that Protestants are facing discrimination in terms of police recruitment, (about 17% of new recruits are from the Catholic community) and has called for the 50/50 policy to be scrapped. The notion of equality has been resisted for generations by the British Government and exercised by their caretaker regime in the Six Counties. Signing up to power-sharing was one thing but equality, that’s something else, for those whose mindset is still entrenched in the ‘old order’. Last week unionists stated that Sinn Féin Ministers would not be permitted an allowance for the drivers of Ministerial cars and they would have to use drivers from the Stormont car pool. As John O’Dowd stated there are more pressing issues to occupy the energies of MLA’S – issues such as the religious imbalance among those employed at Stormont and the NIO. We know that 90% of the staff at the NIO is located in predominantly unionist areas. In the distribution of staff by parliamentary constituency some 690 are located in East Belfast, three in West Belfast, one in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, and seven in Foyle. Of the 118 security guards employed in Stormont only 12 are drawn form the Catholic community. Perhaps some of those unionists concerned with car pools might tell the public the religious composition of that service, given the long history of discrimination practiced at Stormont since its inception. The ‘not a Fenian foot about the place’ might provide a more interesting topic for debate than car pools. At present 43% of the population in the North are from a Catholic background. Despite equality legislation and the Equality Commission, that community still does not enjoy a level playing field in terms of employment, the Irish Language, the Civil Service, and the allocation of resources to areas suffering the highest level of deprivation. The equality fault line still runs deep through the Six Counties and unionism collectively has decided that it’s one change too many. For the republican/nationalist community, it will be a battle a day but it’s a change that Unionism better start getting used to, for equality is timeless and universal.
Report Highlights Higher Levels of Catholic Inequality The Labour Force Survey Religion Report 2005 by the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister was published today. The statistical report, which is conducted annually, measures socio-economic comparative indicators in the six counties and today's official report shows that Catholics are still more likely to be unemployed there. The figures show that, while the number of Catholics in employment has increased in recent years, they still have higher levels of joblessness. Fifty-four per cent of the working-age population in the six counties is Protestant and 46% Catholic, but 76% of Protestants have jobs, compared to just 67% of Catholics. The difference is even more marked in the female population, with just 58% of Catholic women in employment, compared to 71% of Protestants. Sinn Féin Equality and Human Rights spokesperson, Foyle MLA Martina Anderson, has described the report as providing a compelling and unanswerable case for the primacy of the Equality Agenda. Ms Anderson said: "Historical patterns of discrimination and inequality suffered by the Catholic community are still not being effectively addressed – twenty years after the Irish government claimed that the 'nationalist nightmare' was over. "This report provides detailed evidence of structural inequality across our society. It shows persistently higher levels of inequality in the Catholic community and provides a compelling and unanswerable case for the primacy of the Equality Agenda. "For over thirty years, official reports, including this, have repeatedly demonstrated that Catholics remain about 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed. Moreover, the disproportionately higher long-term unemployment rates for Catholics haven't altered in almost fifteen years. "According to this report, on every socio-economic indicator, Catholics remain proportionately worse off. The position of Catholic females, in particular, is worsening. • Catholic females are almost 50% more likely to be economically inactive "While official statistics repeatedly demonstrate persistent patterns of socio-economic structural inequality, there are powerful influences still maintaining the fiction that everything would be fine if the so-called 'two communities' could just get along a bit more. That is neither credible nor acceptable. "All of us want and demand a shared future together. But that shared future cannot and will not be achieved unless it is built on the solid foundation of substantive equality across society. "Overall increased prosperity has clearly not been used to tackle historical patterns of discrimination and inequality. That is no accident. "That is why we must use the Assembly to shine a torchlight on discriminatory patterns of regional investment, public procurement and strategic economic growth by the public sector. We want to tackle poverty and inequality wherever it exists. This demands strong and effective equality tools. "We must also use the Assembly to promote affirmative action and substantive equality measures for all sectors of society, in line with best international human rights practice. "Today's report demonstrates the considerable struggle which still lies ahead to ensure that the Equality Agenda is placed at the heart of every state structure in the six counties."
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