Madam, – The results of the Economic and Social Research Institute’s study on job discrimination in the Irish workplace, (Home News, May 7th) purport to show a marked bias in favour of job applicants with Irish names as opposed to applicants with foreign names. The results of the study also showed that the discrimination identified may be explained by “in-group favouritism”. This was interpreted as a “positive desire to hire Irish workers as opposed to a dislike or hiring foreign workers”.
I am curious to know if the ESRI study included investigating the hiring practices of some Irish and indeed foreign employers in Ireland who appear to display a “positive desire” to employ exclusively foreign labour. No indepth study is necessary to see that in many areas of the services and hospitality sectors, not alone are Irish workers massively underrepresented, but there is a also a propensity by employers to hire workers solely of a specific nationality. Such practice is exploitative of foreign workers and at the same time discriminates against Irish labour.
Loath as I am to raise this issue for fear of being labelled a racist, I nonetheless feel that debate on the subject has been suffocated for too long.
As competition for jobs intensifies in the current economic downturn, the issue of liberal immigration policy indulged in by the Government to provide low-cost labour must be checked. To ignore the issue benefits neither immigrants nor their host country. – Yours, etc,