Sir, – Roderick Downer (January 21st) makes a heartfelt plea for addressing what he feels to be the root cause of the fear and bitterness in Northern Ireland.
I would not go so far as to say the answer is integrated schooling, if there is an answer to ethnic conflict, but I am sure part of the fear could be drawn by having a mixed teaching staff in schools. In this way, the first member of the other community most young people will get to meet would not be at university or in the work place (if they are lucky enough to get a job).
Making that relatively achievable thing happen requires the Assembly to address the great unmentioned fact that, uniquely in Northern Ireland, the 20,000 strong teaching force is not subject to the North’s fierce fair employment regime. Discrimination on grounds of religion is permitted, and widely practised when making teacher appointments.
This unequal state of affairs, far from being stopped, as recommended by the Equality Commission, was in 2000, uniquely in any member state, consolidated in EU directive 2000/78/EC which ended employment discrimination in Europe. Its Article 15 (2), with amazingly specious reasoning, reads, “To maintain a balance of opportunity in employment for teachers in Northern Ireland while furthering the reconciliation of historical divisions between the major religious communities there, the provisions on religion or belief in this directive shall not apply to the recruitment of teachers in schools in Northern Ireland.” A decade ago, the Northern executive promised to address this issue in a notional Single Equality Bill. Nothing ever happened, but it could now if political parties had the courage and a real interest in peace building. – Yours, etc,