NGO Alliance Anti-Racism Report Launch.

national | racism & migration related issues | news report

Friday January 28, 2005 17:26

by Maria - NGO Alliance

“The Government has not done enough to accept multicultural society”, said Benedicta Attoh, Louth African Women’s Support Group representative
at the Anti-Racism Report release last week in Dublin. The Non Government Organisation (NGO) Alliance Shadow Report has been launched in response to a perceived failure of the Government to address immigration issues.

It makes a number of recommendations to protect
ethnic minorities in Ireland from racism and it is a commentary on Ireland’s First National Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). There is “defacto apartheid / segregation” aimed at the Traveller Community as well as at other ethnic groups, claimed David Joyce, representative of the Irish Traveller Movement and speaker at the report launch. The NGO Alliance report highlighted what it says is government’s refusal to recognise the Traveller Community as an ethnic group thereby depriving it of protection under the International convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Low financing for organisations such as the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) has been criticised by the NGO Alliance report. Some groups working with ethnic minorities may have to close down due to budget cuts, the report says. Lack of transparency in immigration and asylum system and the absence of a clear legal framework, have been criticised by the NGO Alliance Shadow Report. It also refers to a lack of communication between the government and minority groups which it says resulted in misleading statistical information on Black and other ethnic communities in Ireland.

The joint report took 18 months to complete and was signed by 44 NGOs working in the area of racism.

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