Jobs - Public Service

Do people think that the lack of immigrants in top jobs in the public service leads to the introduction of policies which make life difficult for immigrants? I am just thinking about the fact that a minister who is the son of an immigrant (Shatter) is the minister who has brought in immigration policies to help immigrants.

I am also thinking of primary school enrolment policies, which allow schools to refuse places to children who are not of the same religious faith as the majority of children attending the school. Is this policy fair and if not what is the best way to change it? The schools also refuse to employ teachers/staff from minority faiths. I think myself that the only solution is to establish minority faith schools in any town with sufficient children.

I calculate that a school with 50 children would employ two full time teachers, one part time teacher, one part time secretary, one part time caretaker and perhaps a part time bus driver or assistant to help with a special needs child. In other words there are 5 jobs available in a primary school with 50 children, and none of these jobs at present are going to immigrant families, despite the fact that immigrant families provide about one third of the children attending Irish primary schools.

I have also been looking at statistics on public service recruitment, and find that very few innigrants are recruited to most parts of the public service (with the exception of healthcare). Do we need to lobby for the introduction of monitoring systems, to ensure that the number of public service jobs going to ethnic minorities reflects the percentage of ethnic minorities in the population? I think this is having a major impact on the delivery of public services to immigrants, but I was wondering if other people feel the same way.

Hi brigid