Parliamentary Committees and Public Enquiries
Printable version

Northern Ireland minority communities ‘overlooked’ by policy makers

  • Representation and engagement need to be increased
  • Inadequate level of ethnic monitoring
  • Support for refugees ‘patchy’ – refugee integration strategy needs to be delivered at pace

Image representing news article

The interests of minority ethnic and migrant communities in Northern Ireland are too often an afterthought amid the desire to balance the demands of Green and Orange politics according to a unanimous report published today by the cross-party Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

It found that a lack of data and information on these communities leads to poor or patchy services.  The challenges faced by refugees following resettlement and the experiences and lessons learned should be addressed given the imminent arrival of people from Afghanistan and, potentially, Ukraine.

Speaking following the publication of the report, Committee Chairman, Simon Hoare said, “Northern Ireland politics and public life has been understandably dominated by Green/Orange discourse. However, Northern Ireland is increasingly becoming more than Green and Orange and people from a range of other communities feel overlooked in politics and policy making. We urge NI civil society to encourage greater representation of minority ethnic people in their own organisations, so that politics can be done ‘with’ and not ‘to’ them.

Collection of accurate ethnic monitoring data bespoke to Northern Ireland is vital for tackling social inequalities and making effective policy. Its absence is lamentable; making it difficult for organisations to identify service needs of communities and reliant on decade-old census data, leaving little insight on the scale of demand or whether equality initiatives are succeeding.

With families fleeing the conflict in Ukraine and the Afghan resettlement scheme set to begin we need to collectively prepare to welcome people traumatised by having to leave their homelands.

While the publication of a draft Refugee Integration Strategy for Northern Ireland is welcome, a final strategy needs to be delivered at pace. We think greater use of expertise from other parts of the UK more familiar with these issues would facilitate the implementation of effective policy to the benefit of Northern Irish society as a whole.

We are conscious that the issues at hand are devolved.  I cannot overstress that my Committee wanted to look into these issues in order to hear direct experience and to feed that into Stormont such that the Executive can reflect upon our findings.  I hope the Executive finds that approach helpful as politicians shape post May 2022 policies.”

Representation

The report said that a lack of representation means that the views and contributions of minority communities are not heard. None of the 90 MLAs in the current Assembly are from a minority ethnic background.

The Committee heard a perception that priority was given to the two main communities in handling local funding opportunities such as good relations initiatives.  

Data Scarcity

MPs on the committee criticised the ‘very low’ level of ethnic monitoring in the report. Some witnesses to the inquiry said that they are still relying on 2011 census data. Geraldine McGahey, Northern Ireland’s Equality Commissioner, told the Committee ‘all policy development to date has been flawed’ as a result.

An example of this is the stark statistic we heard that just 1% of Irish Travellers lived to the age of 65 a decade ago, while no more recent statistics exist to determine whether health outcomes have improved.

The data issue is exacerbated by the fact that for a long time Northern Ireland and Scotland had been treated as a single region in immigration statistics. The Executive Office identified the importance of ethnic monitoring over 15 years ago and the Committee calls for the implementation of wider ethnic monitoring once a new Executive is formed.  Westminster has a key role to play in data collection and sharing.  We will be raising this with the Home Office and ONS.

Refugee experiences

The care of refugees following settlement has been ‘patchy’ according to some witnesses to the inquiry. Over 1,800 Syrians have been resettled in Northern Ireland under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme since 2015. MPs on the Committee heard that cultural concerns and scarce language services made it difficult for refugees especially outside Belfast. This was particularly the those trying to access healthcare without language support and cultural understanding.

The Committee stressed the importance of learning the lessons from the Syrian refugee scheme. With Afghan – and almost certainly Ukrainian – refugees due to arrive soon, Northern Ireland needs to implement a refugee integration strategy with appropriate service provision throughout the region, and do so at pace.

Further information

 

Channel website: http://www.parliament.uk/

Original article link: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/120/northern-ireland-affairs-committee/news/161514/northern-ireland-minority-communities-overlooked-by-policy-makers/

Share this article

Latest News from
Parliamentary Committees and Public Enquiries

Facing the Future...find out more