A call for the Government to move towards guaranteeing the rights of minorities and place special emphasis on ensuring racial justice has been made by the Conference of Religious of Ireland Justice Commission.
In a briefing document, which sets out 10 policy proposals presented to the Government, the commission said many people in Ireland today, particularly Travellers, immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, did not experience a society where their cultures were respected by the majority population.
"In fact, as we become more racially diverse, it becomes evident that Irish society is as capable of being racist as any of our other European neighbours who live in mixed racial societies," the commission said.
Many Irish companies now recruited staff from abroad. In the past 12 months, 14 per cent of employers had recruited someone from abroad. Without this influx of skilled workers from outside Ireland, the economy would not have sustained its current growth rates.
"Yet no cohesive policy has been developed to ensure that the new diversity of culture and ethnic minorities within Ireland are respected as an enrichment of our society," the commission pointed out.
Culture and cultural respect were an important right of people within every society. It was defined by UNESCO as "the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterise a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs."
The commission said that worldwide the 20th century had seen a marked increase in the number of refugees forced to flee from their own countries in order to escape war, persecution and abuses of human rights. Irish people had a long tradition of solidarity with peoples facing oppression within their own countries, but that tradition was not reflected in the policies towards refugees and asylum-seekers.
"We have both a moral and legal responsibility towards refugees and asylum-seekers. As a nation whose own people have themselves experienced the pain of emigration in the past, we should be at the forefront in implementing our obligations under the 1951 UN Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees," the commission stated.
The first of the policy proposals in the document, issued to mark Racial Justice Sunday, is to develop a cultural policy which involves a dynamic conserving of traditions and beliefs as well as to create a vision for the future incorporating hope, confidence and involvement.
It also calls for the implementation of the 1996 Refugee Act as amended, the adoption of the Charter on Asylum Rights in Ireland drawn up by the Asylum Rights Alliance and the application of a "one face, one place" policy to service provision for refugees and asylum-seekers in so far as that is feasible.
Work-permit requirements should be removed for asylum-seekers whose application for asylum was at least one year old and who were entitled to take up employment; resources should be put into processing the backlog of asylum applications; and financial supports should be provided for voluntary organisations which cared for refugees and asylum-seekers.
Finally, the document calls for the provision of special labour market integration measures that address the special needs of refugees; the full implementation of the Task Force Report on the Travelling People; and the introduction of equal status legislation.