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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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Cal4567

TheCitizen wrote: »

We don't want to copy the UK.

It's not just the UK though. It is the immigrant experience everywhere.

cloudatlas

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?

I note first of all how defensive you are.

I just posted this a few pages back.

This survey was from two or three years ago.
https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/...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)'.

Sounds like there may be an issue there.

It's interesting that you see putting in place policies that would make the workplace more diverse as a 'punishment'.

As I'm sure you're aware many workplaces in Ireland have equality and inclusion policies in place, I'm sure you are aware of why and these policies exist and that they aren't the result of wanting to 'punish' in fact it's the exact opposite.

I've already set out why I think a more inclusive and diverse workplace is a good thing, I set that out in the post you cherry picked that bit from. It's interesting that you didn't object to the other things I wrote.

The civil service has a social purpose in so far as it serves the community so encouraging more diversity in their ranks would match that purpose as it would reflect the community that the civil service serves. Pursuit of this purpose does not violate your rights.

TheCitizen

TomTomTim wrote: »

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.

Anything that's been said about the benefits of inclusion for a cohesive society where people are made stakeholders and therefore positive contributors to society has been ignored.

"'Progressive types" in the name of fúck. Being "progressive" is a bad thing around here now. The "progessive types" are steering clear perhaps because this place has turned into a Far Right cesspit and they can't be arsed with the place anymore.

Out there in the real world in this country there are votes for the likes of Grealish or Murphy or that eejit that finished second in the Presidential race, but thankfully politicians who use the dog whistle remain in the minority and have minority support. Long may that continue.

CrankyHaus

cloudatlas wrote: »

Pursuit of this purpose does not violate your rights.

It very much does if you apply for a job and get turned down in favour of soembody less qualified because they are a different colour. It violates your right to equal treatment.

Now you may argue that this violation is proportionate to an imperative to have diversity in the workplace; and maybe it is. But pretending that favouring one person due to their race does not penalise another is disingenuous.

Geuze

I had a look at the BLM manifesto.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

There is no mention of education and/or employment.

It doesn't seem to focus on the problems or challenges that, say, a young unemployed black man might face in the USA, i.e. training/skills/jobs

We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.

We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

Flickerfusion

I would look at the fact that people want to make their lives here as a huge demonstration of success and a driver of that continued success.

It was the same in England. The fact that people were flocking to England was both an indication of success and a huge reason why the place was so dynamic and attractive to live in over the last few decades. London and quite a lot of other places were absolutely thriving.

Then along came the reactionary jingoists and the tabloids, whipped up a load of xenophobia and along came Brexit and now you're facing into years of a grimmer, greyer, less creative, more conservative place that has turned inwards.

It's even more dramatic in the US as the country was quite literally built on immigration.

I would caution that there's a huge disconnect between Irish reality and Irish online bubbles, but you can get spits and spurts of connectivity between the two.

There hasn't been much traction at all for that far right ideology in politics, but I think we really do need to get a hold of ourselves sometimes and actually look at who we are, what we're about, what we actually stood for and claim to stand for and our own history.

The Irish climbing onto high horse and getting notions of ethnic superiority is the height of hypocrisy and it really is not who we are, or certainly shouldn't be anyway.

The main thing we need to do is start getting to know people and getting out of whatever silos certain people seem to have started to climb into. There isn't an us and them on these issues. Get out there and get to know people and start doing what we actually do well - building people networks.

punisher5112

I've heard Joe Duffy has given up on whites now too and all his shows are of BLM type tripe....

Luckily I don't listen to him anyway

Strumms

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.

I don’t go to work to ‘learn’ from anyone. I go to work to do a job....Hopefully one that I enjoy doing, hopefully one where I’m getting on with my colleagues. I do my best to be part of an inclusive, fair, hard working and kind working environment. It’s to earn a living though, not to ‘learn’....if I do learn it’s through experience.

When I worked in France for the OECD I worked in a team of white French people and one other Irish person who was the manager. A team of about 14 people, one French guy of Moroccan extraction, who as only one of two people my age I got on extremely well with, he was apart from the manager was the only other non French by birth... we were of the same age, we got on , a seriously nice guy.. he invited me to his home, met the wife and kids..great.

I never felt... ‘hey, what are you guys doing to only hire whites ?’, neither did he, when we played in the football team of our ‘section’, it was about 50 / 50.... another Irish, two English, people of African, Indian, Australian, Portuguese, Asian and South American cultures.. that was the INTERNATIONAL nature of that organization...

A workplace ‘may’ be racially diverse, it doesn’t ‘have’ to be, doesn’t ‘need’ to be. I think it’s far more damming on society and organizations to hire based on your ethnicity, or to back ethnicity over ability which is discriminatory.

If I’m potentially being hired to fill a vacancy whereby I’m in competition with a fellow Irish person and a person from another country or ethnicity the only thing I expect in the interests of fairness, is to go in with the same chance as the others, to be treated with fairness, to have a fair chance... to be the victim of a quota, is not fair.

Tea drinker

TheCitizen wrote: »

Anything that's been said about the benefits of inclusion for a cohesive society where people are made stakeholders and therefore positive contributors to society has been ignored.

"'Progressive types" in the name of fúck. Being "progressive" is a bad thing around here now. The "progessive types" are steering clear perhaps because this place has turned into a Far Right cesspit and they can't be arsed with the place anymore.

Out there in the real world in this country there are votes for the likes of Grealish or Murphy or that eejit that finished second in the Presidential race, but thankfully politicians who use the dog whistle remain in the minority and have minority support. Long may that continue.

You aren't getting the message, the majority see you in the wrong here. Labelling people and using derogatory terms about dog whistles isn't going to get you any traction. Re-think your approach and try to find some common ground, or just take a break, we (including myself) are all on the increasingly toxic interwebs due to covid.

Bottom line, it's great we have huge over representation of skilled foreign workers in a rainbow of colours and accents in high paid high skill jobs in Ireland.
Low paid civil service isn't attracting them for obvious reasons. We have a solution in search of a problem, or a populace in need of some beratement, for something somewhere.

cloudatlas

CrankyHaus wrote: »

It very much does if you apply for a job and get turned down in favour of soembody less qualified because they are a different colour. It violates your right to equal treatment.

Now you may argue that this violation is proportionate to an imperative to have diversity in the workplace; and maybe it is. But pretending that favouring one person due to their race does not penalise another is disingenuous.

If part of the mission is to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the place of employment and everyone who is admitted will be qualified to do the job required of them and this does not violate our constitution I see no issue here.

Promoting diversity and correcting past inequalities in the workplace are noble goals and Ireland have already taken steps to do this in the past. This is nothing new, sorry you see it as a 'punishment', that's a reflection of your attitudes towards minorities but you will try to dress it up otherwise.

TheCitizen

TomTomTim wrote: »

Is TheCitizen promoting Stormfront? I've seen him mention the site about 4 times in the last few days.

That's increasingly what it appears this place is turning into. Not reflected in the real world in this country as yet and long may that continue.

TheCitizen

kildare lad wrote: »

The Far left are doing a great job at putting the Right in power all across the world . They're so out of touch with normal people on the ground all they're doing is alienating people like me with there nonsense politics and bending over backwards to appease people who contribute little to nothing to society . You can thank the Left for another 4 years of trump when he gets re elected this year .

Gibberish. Are Fine Gael "Left" now.

CrankyHaus

cloudatlas wrote: »

If part of the mission is to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the place of employment and everyone who is admitted will be qualified to do the job required of them and this does not violate our constitution I see no issue here.

Promoting diversity and correcting past inequalities in the workplace are noble goals and Ireland have already taken steps to do this in the past. This is nothing new, sorry you see it as a 'punishment', that's a reflection of your attitudes towards minorities but you will try to dress it up otherwise.

It's the suspension of the right to not be discriminated against on grounds of race. The only person trying to dress it up otherwise is you.
Nice effort trying to insinuate that I'm a racist for pointing that out.

TheCitizen

gibsmedat wrote: »

Varadkar,BLM,and the NGOs are doing a fantastic job at waking up the Irish working class to their nonsense.

What nonsense is this exactly? Seeking better representation of minorities in working life, making them stakeholders in society leading to a more cohesive society, challenging racism? If you think that's nonsense it says a lot about you.

gibsmedat wrote: »

The statue issue will also massively split the left.

Why would anyone on the Left be mobilised to oppose the removing of statues of usually rich people that may have made their wealth by nefarious means. Why would that cause a split?

Flickerfusion

I very much had that experience working in very multinational organisations. I've worked with people from all over the world and frankly, their ethnicity had nothing to do with who I got on with and who I didn't. People are people and personalities, interests, attitudes tend to be down to individuals.

I spent a year house sharing with people from China, Austria and Singapore, and remain extremely good friends with most of them years later.

One of my best buds is French, with parents from Benin.

I house shared with two Jewish-Bostonian/New Yorker guys in Boston and am still buds with them years later.

I've family members married to people from France, Germany and China and it's fecking great to have the network. I mean, I feel if I am in Paris, Stuttgart or Shanghai there's someone I can lift the phone and grab dinner with. I've had proper sense of seeing China from the inside out and so on.

I can't imagine how dull life would have been had I just hung out with only the people I went to school with from my own 'parish' and background. It'd have been a lot duller that's for sure.

People need to get away from the keyboards and start talking to some of the people they're making all sorts of assumptions about.

If we all started by just making a bit of an effort to reach out. Have the chats, go for lunch, hang out with people... and get out of your increasingly weird bubbles. They're not reality.

The issues in Ireland are different to the US, but there are definite parallels in how we can 'other' people we still need to challenge ourselves not to fall into that trap of right wing crapology.

I also think it's very easy for Irish people to forget that we have a rather unpleasant history of 'othering' each other too. I remember absolutely horrific sectarian stuff like a protestant friend of mine in Cork City being told as a kid that some other kid wasn't allowed to play with her because she was protestant and that was in the 1990s!

Also in Dublin I lived next to a rather weird and conservative old lady. On the other side, there was a really nice friendly family. They started making dinners and bringing the into the older neighbour and making sure she was OK. Every single day she got lunch and dinner plated up and brought in, without any charge, obligation or anything asked in return. If they were doing dinner, they just whipped up another plate of whatever it was and called in with it and had a bit of an auld chat. just wonderful neighbours.

The old lady was talking to me and absolutely berated them to me because they were protestants!!?? She was a really bitter old right wing sectarian who'd nothing good to say about anyone who wasn't a member of her rather narrow, conservative view of the world and would rip people apart behind their back.

Going back further, a relative of mine grew up in Stoneybatter in the 1940s/50s and her best friend was Presbyterian. She was the only kid on the street who was 'allowed' to play with her. The other children were literally told not to have anything to do with them as they were protestants. In one case they were 'only allowed to swap books or play outside' but never go into the house! My family didn't engage in any of that and the two households got on great as neighbours, but the attitudes and nastiness that family put up with were really serious.

Can you imagine what it must have been like living somewhere where your neighbours wouldn't talk to you and took attitudes like that?!

There's a nasty streak runs through this society and it's one we need to watch out for and keep in check. It's the same 'othering' attitude that brought us plenty of horrors over the years and I would hate to see it applied to ethnic groups.

It's not that long ago we were doing it to each other.

gibsmedat

punisher5112 wrote: »

I've heard Joe Duffy has given up on whites now too and all his shows are of BLM type tripe....

Luckily I don't listen to him anyway

Hes been going full send attacking the Irish all week,hes a lowlife.

Bobblehats

punisher5112 wrote: »

I've heard Joe Duffy has given up on whites now too and all his shows are of BLM type tripe....

Luckily I don't listen to him anyway

Been keeping him within earshot he’s like a man obsessed. Lot of virtuous folk who sound like they’re from the other side of the Atlantic ringing in this past week

SEPT 23 1989

the first big influx of immigrants only arrived 20 years ago

their kids are only in college now

how would they be working in the civil service at this stage?

TheCitizen

Tea drinker wrote: »

You aren't getting the message, the majority see you in the wrong here. Labelling people and using derogatory terms about dog whistles isn't going to get you any traction. Re-think your approach and try to find some common ground, or just take a break, we (including myself) are all on the increasingly toxic interwebs due to covid.

Bottom line, it's great we have huge over representation of skilled foreign workers in a rainbow of colours and accents in high paid high skill jobs in Ireland.
Low paid civil service isn't attracting them for obvious reasons. We have a solution in search of a problem, or a populace in need of some beratement, for something somewhere.

You're rambling towards the end there.

When I use the term dog whistle I'm referring to politicians who use that as a tactic. They do use that as a tactic, are you saying it can't be referred to because it's "labelling" people?

I'm not worried that "the majority see me in the wrong here". This site has become a Far Right portal. I would start to worry if I saw the complexion of our real politics turning in that direction as it has done in the UK and the US.

gibsmedat

TheCitizen wrote: »

What nonsense is this exactly? Seeking better representation of minorities in working life, making them stakeholders in society leading to a more cohesive society, challenging racism? If you think that's nonsense it says a lot about you.

Why would anyone on the Left be mobilised to oppose the removing of statues of usually rich people that may have made their wealth by nefarious means. Why would that cause a split?

Several republican groups have already spoken out against the removal of any statues. The same republicans that stand side by side with the pbp mob at protests and demos.

As for the NGO's. Total scammers. 5 billion a year they get. Almost double the budget of the department of justice.

Go to working class areas and ask if if they care enough about minorities to spend 5 billion of their taxes every year on them and then to be called racist by those same NGOs.

John_Rambo

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

the first big influx of immigrants only arrived 20 years ago

their kids are only in college now

how would they working in the civil service at this stage?

Lol!

TheCitizen

gibsmedat wrote: »

Several republican groups have already spoken out against the removal of any statues. The same republicans that stand side by side with the pbp mob at protests and demos.

As for the NGO's. Total scammers. 5 billion a year they get. Almost double the budget of the department of justice.

Go to working class areas and ask if if they care enough about minorities to spend 5 billion of their taxes every year on them and then to be called racist by those same NGOs.

What’s these Republican groups you’re referring to? SF are the only Republican Party with decent representation. FF used to call themselves the Republican Party also. Small Republican or splinter parties like RSF etc have next to no representation anyway. There’s not much danger of a significant split over statues.

Any link to what NGO’s get from the taxpayers? Seems a very broad sweeping statement you’re making there. Are you talking about Amnesty and others, who or what are you talking about there?

conorhal

Deleted User wrote: »

I would. It's a continuation of the push for multiculturalism, even though multiculturalism has consistently created severe social problems in every country it has been implemented in. Not in the short term, but definitely in the medium to long term.

It's a stupid thing to push, and only encourages division, because he's giving approval to minority activists to complain about racism, discrimination, etc regardless of the practical realities.

That's because it's intended to stoke division.

Lets make a case study of what lies behind the recent push for diversity and inclusion programmes using Amazon as an example.
Jeff Bezos has been virue signalling mightily lately.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-one-amazon-customer-that-jeff-bezos-is-happy-to-lose-2020-06-08
http://archive.fo/0EcCb

This is a prime example of someone whose business is not welcome on Amazon.
CEO Jeff Bezos revealed in an Instagram post on Sunday that he’s been getting “sickening but not surprising” emails since his last post, when he responded to a customer that complained about the “Black Lives Matter” banner on top of Amazon’s e-commerce site. The customer countered that “All Lives Matter,” and Bezos responded that Black Lives Matter “doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter.” He added that he supports the movement, and he’s not going to change his stance.

So, Bezo has some intern trawl through customer e-mails to find a whackjob outlier to drag as he smugly virtue signals his support for BLM.
But what's his motivation?

Personally, I think his motivation can be found here:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foods-unionization-heat-map-union

It seems that Amazon's Whole Foods subsidiary has been caught using A.I. to create a heat map of stores at risk of unionizing.
How does all this tie in to multiculturalism you ask?
Well the answer to that lies in the the variables that they use to model these predictions.

Here are some examples of “store risks”:
Store-risk metrics include average store compensation, average total store sales, and a “diversity index” that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity and lower employee compensation, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers’ compensation claims, according to the documents.

Hmmmmmm.....
That looks an awful lot like Amazon think diversity is their best union buster. Seems like something they'd want to promote to make sure they keep employees down.

We're seeing the same thinking from our political masters also. Promote divisive identity politics by throwing money at the race hustler QUANGOs and keep the serfs too divided to act collectively so they'll be happy to fight among themselves over the scraps that fall from their lords table.
These people aren't interested in diversity, they're interested in control and an electorate that can be devided into interest groups that are incouraged to vote for parties on the basis of gibsmedats is easily controled.

gibsmedat

TheCitizen wrote: »

What’s these Republican groups you’re referring to? SF are the only Republican Party with decent representation. FF used to call themselves the Republican Party also. Small Republican or splinter parties like RSF etc have next to no representation anyway. There’s not much danger of a significant split over statues.

Any link to what NGO’s get from the taxpayers? Seems a very broad sweeping statement you’re making there. Are you talking about Amnesty and others, who or what are you talking about there?

The smaller republican groups of which there are many will vote left. Usually PBP some will still vote Sinn Fein even though they are idealogically opposed to them. 32 CSM RSF and Anti imperialist action Ireland have all spoken against the removal of the Sean Russell statue in Fairview. A good portion of left voters in Ireland are fanatical republicans.

Give me a few minutes and ill dig out the stuff on the ngos. Its 5.5 billion, it accounts for 8.2% of all expenditure by the exchequer.

https://www.businesspost.ie/news-focus/more-than-half-of-ngos-105-billion-funding-comes-from-the-state-9b7115a5

I think we have around 90 ngos in Ireland. Its a gravy train.

cloudatlas

CrankyHaus wrote: »

It's the suspension of the right to not be discriminated against on grounds of race. The only person trying to dress it up otherwise is you.
Nice effort trying to insinuate that I'm a racist for pointing that out.

Don't remember calling you anything but it's interesting you use the word yourself. Just thought of another benefit of a more diverse work place it reduces bias in our attitudes, employment policies etc.,

WastedYouth

The “very white” thing is just what happens to people who join the civil service in any country. They just pale from spending so much time in the shadows gossiping and plotting.

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tobefrank321

My problem with Leo is he's had 3 years to do something about this issue as Taoiseach.

He's had 9 years in government to do something about it.

And he only mentions it now when it becomes the major international issue of our time and even then only pays lip service to it.

Bring in the heads of the civil service and ask them to do something about it, instead of making some big PR show and then doing nothing.

Unless of course he has actually no intention of doing anything about it.

punisher5112

My dad would have been a listener to Joe duffus but he has been turned right off, very sad when you're made out to be an outcast in one owns country.

He was here for the hard times back in the 50s and his parents before this and theirs before that.....
They got no help from anyone and worked hard.

punisher5112

tobefrank321 wrote: »

My problem with Leo is he's had 3 years to do something about this issue as Taoiseach.

He's had 9 years in government to do something about it.

And he only mentions it now when it becomes the major international issue of our time and even then only pays lip service to it.

Bring in the heads of the civil service and ask them to do something about it, instead of making some big PR show and then doing nothing.

What a wonderful world we live in right now....

WastedYouth

punisher5112 wrote: »

My dad would have been a listener to Joe duffus but he has been turned right off, very sad when you're made out to be an outcast in one owns country.

He was here for the hard times back in the 50s and his parents before this and theirs before that.....
They got no help from anyone and worked hard.

What happened on Liveline?