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Child Item

Leo says the Civil Service is 'very white'

Akesh

Imagine the shock and horror in Leinster House when it was discovered that a country, where over 91% of the population are white, has a civil service that is 'very white'. To correct this error, he would like to use targets for the civil service to hire more minorities.

These kinds of targets are illogical and in no way should a public servant be hired on the basis of their skin colour or race but this is what he wants to introduce.

Is this just another reactionary policy in reaction to the death of George Floyd or does it have merit? Obviously recruiters in the civil service are racists otherwise there would be no need for such a policy/target.

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Tea drinker

TheCitizen wrote: »

Loads of posters came on and said stuff like " they'll be no jobs for Irish people", "Irish may not apply", "discrimination against white people" etc etc. The comments by the Taoiseach were not about quotas or positive discrimination, it was very mild conciliatory aspirational stuff and yet it was met with the sort of commentary and opposition I referred to above. That ott response was racist sentiment.

No, Leo's statement is anti white, and over the top. White minorities cannot apply for a job where the criteria is "not white"
The country is vastly white and vastly welcoming to foreigners. A policy is being made which is not needed and discriminatory.

TheCitizen

biko wrote: »

It will in time reflect society.

If you try to force it with positive discrimination "we must have 1 blacks, 1 Chinese, 2 Polish and 6 whites at this department to reflect society" then you're just going to alienate people.

It will happen naturally. I wish progressives stopped trying to force things because they want it all now.

You use the word "progressives" like it's a bad thing.

Varadker didn't mention positive discrimination. Posters on here are using that term.

You do need to have targeted campaigns though to entice people from minorities to join public services; that's not the same as "positive discrimination". Advertising campaigns with a black or Asian police officer, that kind of thing. You need people from minorities to become stakeholders in society, that doesn't happen naturally.

kildare lad

TheCitizen wrote: »

Yes, he's saying the civil service and public service should reflect society. I think it should, that's if you want a cohesive society where those living in are included and are stakeholders in our society.

Well if it reflects society , blacks make up one and a half % of the population so by right if there's a hundred employees there's should be just over one employee who's black , is that ok or is that not diverse enough ?

fin12

Ninthlife wrote: »

Im going to call bull**** on that claim. In order to get into the civil service you firstly need to pass an exam and not only pass it but score high enough to be called to interview. Then you are required to sit a competency based interview that usually consists of 3 board members.

So tell me how one person managed to influence not only a persons exam score but also 3 independent people on an interview board to allow this person into a job?

I hear that sh*t all the time and actually what happens is the family member told the person to apply for the civil service and informed them about an open completion that was running. But they take that as oh he got him in. Ridiculous.

beggars_bush

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

You'd swear there was something wrong with being white.

He's making a fool of himself over the last few days bladdering on about removing statues and suggesting there is a big problem with racism in this country when there really isn't.

What a utopian paradise you live in

biko

kildare lad wrote: »

Well if it reflects society , blacks make up one and a half % of the population so by right if there's a hundred employees there's should be just over one employee who's black , is that ok or is that not diverse enough ?

Society is half male. HSE is heavily slanted towards female employees.
If we fire half of the women at HSE we can hire males to take their jobs.
We may have to increase pay for the males to entice them to these freed-up positions.

cloudatlas

https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2017-eu-midis-ii-main-results_en.pdf' they are also more likely to experience discrimination on the job, with respondents of Sub-Saharan African background in Luxembourg,
Sweden, and Ireland indicating the highest discrimination rates in the 12 months before the survey (21 %,17 % and 17 %, respectively)'.

Rodin

biko wrote: »

Society is half male. HSE is heavily slanted towards female employees.
If we fire half of the women at HSE we can hire males to take their jobs.

Or create men-only jobs.
Precedent for single-sex jobs already exists.

TheCitizen

Tea drinker wrote: »

No, Leo's statement is anti white, and over the top. White minorities cannot apply for a job where the criteria is "not white"
The country is vastly white and vastly welcoming to foreigners. A policy is being made which is not needed and discriminatory.

Nope. You've got it entirely wrong.

Amazing that I find myself incessantly defending Leo Varadker here, I voted Sinn Fein in the last election.

What concerns me is if politicians in this country start acting like Johnson in the UK or they start to ape some of what Trump did to get votes and cause division picking up easy votes by using rhetoric against progressive inclusion of minorities. Politicians can and do get support with those kinds of tactics, it's bad for a cohesive equal society and they profit off the division.

It also doesn't help indigenous white people who are struggling either, they get distracted with stories of minorities doing better than they are instead of focusing on what they need to do to better their own conditions.

It's bullshít and it's time people copped on to it.

Tea drinker

TheCitizen wrote: »

You use the word "progressives" like it's a bad thing.

Advertising campaigns with a black or Asian police officer, that kind of thing. You need people from minorities to become stakeholders in society, that doesn't happen naturally.

Progressives are a bad thing. Typicaslly now associated with far left hysteria, smear campaigns and doxxing.

Tech industry is heaving with much needed skilled foreigners. Same as Irish don't want to work in hotels, the foreigners don't want to work in low paid civil service jobs.
Many simply can't afford to with massive rents in the city.
We are inventing problems that don't exist - foreigners have MORE opportunities than being stuck in civil service.

gibsmedat

Geuze wrote: »

I see your point, but that's not really happening here?

People are voting SF and Green and PBP.

A lot of Sinn Fein voters are very uneducated when it comes to politics and what the party actually stand for, still believing its a nationalist party when it is anything but. If these people ever wake up Sinn Fein will lose the working class vote.

TomTomTim

TheCitizen wrote: »

Nope. You've got it entirely wrong.

What concerns me is if politicians in this country start acting like Johnson in the UK or they start to ape some of what Trump did to get votes and cause division picking up easy votes by using rhetoric against progressive inclusion of minorities. Politicians can and do get support with those kinds of tactics, it's bad for a cohesive equal society and they profit off the division.

The opposite, what he is doing now, is just as divisive. You're so blinded by your own ideology that you can't see that many hate both extremes.

jam_mac_jam

Rodin wrote: »

If quotas based on sex are brought in to the public service, it should be to get more men in.
Heavily oversubscribed in favour of women.

I don't agree with it for anyone. It's inherently unfair.

[Deleted User]

TheCitizen wrote: »

Loads of posters came on and said stuff like " they'll be no jobs for Irish people", "Irish may not apply", "discrimination against white people" etc etc. The comments by the Taoiseach were not about quotas or positive discrimination, it was very mild conciliatory aspirational stuff and yet it was met with the sort of commentary and opposition I referred to above. That ott response was racist sentiment.

None of which is racist. It's alarmist. That's all.

And implementation of quotas for migrants (since it creates a preferential environment) is racist/discriminatory. Just because the majority are white doesn't mean that they can't be discriminated against. Job availability is finite especially in particular industries or positions of authority. Giving preference to migrants is showing discrimination against the white majority... whereas basing it solely on skills/education/experience is not (since you can improve those, whereas you can't change your race)

Cal4567

History of emigration normally shows that you only really start seeing immigrant communities prospering into middle class work, having the ability to buy a house etc, until the 2nd generation reaches adult age, so about 20 years plus. Look at West Indian immigration to the UK in the 1950s and 60s, bus drivers and nurses, but their children from the 80s to 90s starting to get the benefits of their education, something deprived to their parents.

The UK's 1950s would be us largely circa 2000.

y0ssar1an22

cloudatlas wrote: »

The reasons for this- Compensating for past wrongs giving people preference to make up for past discrimination that has placed people at an unfair disadvantage.

Promoting diversity. A racially mixed workplace enables us to learn more from each other and about the people in our community which we are working with. Drawing people from one pool limits the range of intellectual and cultural perspectives. Equipping minorities to have the opportunity to gain positions of leadership advances the civic purposes of such government bodies and contributes to the common good.

Nobody has a right to be considered under any specific criteria that they wish, it is up to the employer to set the criteria for the job.

what past wrongs have the irish committed that we owe compensation for?

any even if there are past wrongs, do we punish the current population for sins of the past?

if so, how far back do you want to go?

does everyone in this country not have the same opportunity?

TheCitizen

TomTomTim wrote: »

The opposite, what he is doing now, is just as divisive. You're so blinded by your own ideology that you can't see that many hate both extremes.

How is it divisive to have campaigns to include people?

There's no talking to some people. We can only hope that people with views like you have will remain in the minority in this country.

TheCitizen

Cal4567 wrote: »

History of emigration normally shows that you only really start seeing immigrant communities prospering into middle class work, having the ability to buy a house etc, until the 2nd generation reaches adult age, so about 20 years plus. Look at West Indian immigration to the UK in the 1950s and 60s, bus drivers and nurses, but their children from the 80s to 90s starting to get the benefits of their education, something deprived to their parents.

The UK's 1950s would be us largely circa 2000.

We don't want to copy the UK.

kildare lad

y0ssar1an22 wrote: »

what past wrongs have the irish committed that we owe compensation for?

any even if there are past wrongs, do we punish the current population for sins of the past?

if so, how far back do you want to go?

does everyone in this country not have the same opportunity?

All you need to be is white nowadays to be guilty of slavery.

TomTomTim

TheCitizen wrote: »

How is it divisive to have campaigns to include people?

There's no talking to some people. We can only hope that people with views like you have will remain in the minority in this country.

Look at this thread, you're one of the only ones who doesn't see an issue with it. I think that's pretty divisive by any measurement.

TheCitizen

TomTomTim wrote: »

Look at this thread, you're one of the only ones who doesn't see an issue with it. I think that's pretty divisive by any measurement.

This thread isn't reflective of society, I'm hoping.

[Deleted User]

TheCitizen wrote: »

This thread isn't reflective of society, I'm hoping.

None are.

fin12

gibsmedat wrote: »

A lot of Sinn Fein voters are very uneducated when it comes to politics and what the party actually stand for, still believing its a nationalist party when it is anything but. If these people ever wake up Sinn Fein will lose the working class vote.

I use to vote for Sinn Fein but I’m never again cause all they seem to do is care only about people on social welfare and increasing the payments.

Cal4567

gibsmedat wrote: »

A lot of Sinn Fein voters are very uneducated when it comes to politics and what the party actually stand for, still believing its a nationalist party when it is anything but. If these people ever wake up Sinn Fein will lose the working class vote.

Similar to the UK Labour party experience. FF would want those votes back as well.

I think you've highlighted something there that has a very good chance of happening. The Left generally, in the form of SF and PFP here is very white and working, or non working, class. Then there is the soft Left, Labour and Soc Dems, who attract a more urban middle class vote socially liberal vote.

There is a massive white working class vote in Ireland, still with socially conservative outlooks. SF has them at the moment, but who long can it keep them?

TomTomTim

TheCitizen wrote: »

This thread isn't reflective of society, I'm hoping.

True, but if you think people generally will have no issue with this I'd say you're naive at best. Keep in mind that most of the usual progressive types have keep well clear of this thread, something they rarely do.

kildare lad

TheCitizen wrote: »

How is it divisive to have campaigns to include people?

There's no talking to some people. We can only hope that people with views like you have will remain in the minority in this country.

You never answered my question about the workforce reflecting society

Well if it reflects society , blacks make up one and a half % of the population so by right if there's a hundred employees there's should be just over one employee who's black , is that ok or is that not diverse enough

maneno

Rodney Bathgate wrote: »

Given that many African countries are among the most corrupt, this doesn’t bode well for our public sector and our ‘Corruption Perception Index’ placing. Can we expect less FDI as a result?

And I suppose the “brown envelopes” here aren’t considered corruption, the mccabe revelations,ðŸ€”ðŸ€”

McDermotX

Akesh wrote: »

Leo......

This bloke is an unbelievable twat.

Flickerfusion

Girly Gal wrote: »

Polish is not a widely used language outside of Poland, the other languages are more widely used globally and in business

Not exclusively.

Spanish, yes I can understand as being as useful as English for global business and travel, but the rest?

French isn't really a useful language for international business anymore. It was some historical language of diplomacy, yet it's the most widely taught language in Ireland other than Irish. It's a nice language, I speak it and it's our nearest continental neighbour, but we need to be broadening our views.

You've huge markets opening in the newer members of the EU. I don't see why we're not using or Polish, Czech, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Romanian and other links to make connections and open opportunities. These are mostly rapidly growing places and where a lot of Europe's new opportunities over the next few decades will be yet we're all focused on learning French. Not that there's anything wrong with French, but it just seems a bit myopic and 19th century of us.

German is only really spoken in Germany and Austria and a bit of Switzerland. The German economy is significant, at the moment, but it's still just on of many non-global European languages.

Nobody teaches Portuguese, yet we've loads of people from Brazil and it's a huge language.

Also Chinese? Arabic? Russian? Turkish
I doubt we'd be struggling to find teachers of any of those and I can't see how they're any less useful than learning Italian or German.

It just seems very odd to me that we've a whole load of linguistic groups, from pretty useful languages and they're not available in schools, despite the presence of plenty of people who could potentially teach them.

I mean 1.9 million of us go to Spain every year (in normal times) yet hardly any studies Spanish in school. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, given the proximity of the two countries and the vast scale of the language and the number of Spanish speakers from Spain and Latin America who live here.

Seems to me our education system is just in a time warp.

And I think it's very indicative of an attitude that somehow French, German etc is worthy of study and everyone else is an 'immigrant' and it's an attitude I see a lot in Britain too. We've notions about languages and cultures depending on how establishment and wealthy we perceive the places that speak them are.

To me, not learning about the languages and people who've moved here and not tapping into that vast network is absolute lunacy. If there's one thing Ireland used to be good at it was networking and recent immigration should be a huge opportunity to expand that Irish network, not adopt some kind of anglo-americas notions of isolationism and snobbery.

Our own history, and not even long ago, has many parallels to those who've arrived here over the last 20 to 30 years, be they people who just decided to move here for the craic, for jobs, to seek a better life or to flee wars, persecution and famine.

I just find it weird a cohort here have suddenly gained these 'notions' and are punching down.

Tim Robbins

KevRossi wrote: »

The IT people have more than likely arrived here for the sole reason of working for better pay than at home or a new experience. The majority return home after a few years. I did the same myself; spent 16 years abroad.

To get a role as a National School teacher you need Irish, (yes I know there is a way around it), as it's a part of the curriculum. That's why so few non-nationals work in that area; they just don't have the Irish.

In my secondary school in the 80's we had a French national teaching French and a German teaching German. Made sense and as Irish was not a requirement they could teach it.

In Germany you need to be a German citizen (not resident) to get any post as a civil servant. I have fluent German, can get a public servant post there if I wish, not civil service*. There is a difference.

*I have done contract work for the German civil service on a number of occasions, but it's not a permanent position.

I think you create roles in primary school teachers to have more ethnic diversity in it and also accelerator programs for Irish - some people are brilliant at languages and could get up Leaving Cert standard or required teaching standard extremely quickly.