The Labour Party’s intercultural group hosted an open event on the integration of ethnic minorities last week.
Speakers from Pavee Point, the Immigrant Council of Ireland, the Integration Centre and the New Communities Partnership came together in Dublin under the banner ‘What now for integration?’ to present their views on where immigration policy needs to go in the future.
Labour TD Aodhan O’Riordan said this is a great time in our country to “start again”, maintaining that the focus should not be on the economy but people’s self-esteem.
O’Riordain argued that changes needed to be made in a Government that is “very white and very male”.
But the former primary school principal did not address the issue of ongoing cutbacks in education, especially to the visiting teacher for Travellers (VTT) service, English language support teachers and special needs assistants.
Ali Dennehy, senior information officer with the Integration Centre, outlined the burdens facing highly educated immigrants.
“In 2010 approximately every second job loss affected a non-Irish national. Unemploy-ment is much higher among non-Irish people with third level awards than Irish people with the same qualification,” she said.
Her solutions to this included training for employment support services to help interpret foreign qualifications and awards; grants for immigrant professionals preparing for exams or registering with professional bodies; mentoring programmes for skilled immigrants; and a designated role for targeting ethnic entrepreneurs on every city and county enterprise board.
Another issue Dennehy highlighted was the lack of data collected within the education system, as well as access to third level education for asylum seekers and third-country nationals.
She called for an integrated approach to be taken wherein migrants studying English at a certain Fetac level not prevented from studying general courses at the same level.
In addition, she said low-cost loans should be made available for students taking up language exam preparation and foundation courses to enter third level colleges and professional bodies.
