John WalsheIt’s easy to welcome immigrants when times are good, when the economy is booming and jobs are plentiful. And times were good in Ireland for a long time. Indeed, it’s hard to believe now that just a few years ago, the State training and employment authority Fás travelled as far afield as South Africa, Newfoundland and the US looking for workers to come here.
For the most part they were made welcome. They were, and still are, essential to keep many sectors of the economy going. Research carried out by Fás for the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs confirms how dependent Ireland is on immigrants.
In 2007 a quarter of therapists (excluding physiotherapists) in the health care sector were non-Irish nationals; almost a third of labourers working in sales and services were non-Irish; a fifth of warehouse staff were non-Irish; and a quarter of software engineers were immigrants.
But for the real yardstick of how welcoming and tolerant a society is, look no further than the nation’s schools and ask how are they treating the children of immigrants.
Very well, according to Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together, which is the patron body for 56 multi-denominational primary sch-ools in the Republic. But is this set to change, as deep cuts work their way through the education system – cuts that affect everything from schoolbook and transition year grants to language support services?
Rowe is not aware of any reports where parents are blaming ‘immigrants’ for the financial crisis which is about to impact on schools. He believes Educate Together schools have prepared their communities well to deal with diversity, as have denominational and other schools.
But there is no doubt that some schools and some parents are more welcoming than others. One problem is that schools that are particularly open can become a magnet for immigrant children who enrol in large numbers. This, in turn, can annoy Irish-born parents who see a lot of time and resources spent on immigrant pupils for whom English is not the first tongue.
They may not blame them for the cuts, but that does not mean Irish parents are all united in their welcome for immigrant children in school. There are no surveys to back up this observation, but certainly anecdotal evidence abounds.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has taken a strong stand on this and tried to ensure that church schools, while maintaining their Catholic ethos, establish a realistic mix of religious and ethnic make-up more or less in line with the overall population of the local area.
“I hear of parents – even those who might fit into the social categorisation of ‘good Catholic parents’ – making decisions with their feet or with their four-wheel-drives to opt out of diversity in schools,” he said last year. He also admitted that comments he had made about schools, integration and diversity had prompted a number of racist or quasi-racist letters which, he added, did not encourage him.
Schools reflect the societies they live in, and cannot get too far ahead of their surroundings. But they can help change attitudes, and many are doing just that. Next time we will look at new research into how teachers are trying to meet the needs of their immigrant students, and what the education system needs to do to help them assimilate into Irish society.
John Walshe is education editor of the Irish Independent
