100 Voices #AllAgainstRacism: Sinéad Gibney - "Young Black Irish people speak about how their experiences here follow the same patterns as the UK and US. It’s imperative that we listen"

Sinead Gibney
Chief Commissioner, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission

As a society, we can’t just talk about integration and celebrating a multicultural Ireland. We also have to name and call out and dismantle the racism that exists in our society – whether it is at an individual, systemic or organisational level. Dialogue is essential to dealing with racism. That is something we want to encourage at every opportunity.

The violence you’re seeing in many places across the world now is a result of the fact that second, third and fourth generation individuals and communities are born into what have become highly polarised societies. Too often, ghettoisation and problematic attitudes are institutionally built into the systems within those countries.

We’re at a very interesting point of inflection in our journey as a country. We can prevent that kind of polarisation, if we take the right approach – but if we fail to act now, we’ll have a much more problematic situation to deal with.

Young black Irish people are speaking more openly now about how their experiences here follow the same patterns that we’ve seen in those countries. It’s imperative that we listen to them and learn from them. We’re all human, which means that we’re all susceptible to racism. To think that Ireland is somehow different from everywhere else is just denial and delusion.

Within Europe, it’s true that we have a different colonial history. As a country that was colonised, we have seen the other side of that coin. But our hands are not clean either. You only have to look at the extent of discrimination against members of the Travelling community to see that.

There is as real concern that, if you don’t have exposure to diverse populations of people of ethnic minority groups, you will develop biases. That, for me, is one of the biggest challenges: that far too often, people can be in denial about their own biases or prejudices. It is by acknowledging the stereotypes we harbour – stereotypes that harm people of other races – that we can hopefully learn how to change.

I think it is important that ethnic minority communities see a State agency like the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission being proactive, and driving initiatives like the All Against Racism campaign. We want them to feel seen in their experiences of racism. That’s why we ask the public to consider their own actions when they’re witnesses to an incident of racism or discrimination. Pretending racism isn’t happening is clearly not the answer.

Of course, it isn’t just about individuals. The State also has a huge responsibility in relation to tackling discrimination. The National Action Plan Against Racism is currently being drafted by a committee of the Department of Justice. Data is key here: what we can’t measure, we can’t change. But it is important that we get this plan right, and that it works.

The honest truth is that, at the moment, we cannot measure the experiences of ethnic minorities as they relate to the State. State services do not collect data. We asked the Garda Commissioner to collect data around Covid sanctions to see if they might have fallen disproportionately on a particular group, for example. Without that data, we – as a human rights institution and inequality body – are hampered.

As individuals we must do more to combat racism. But as a State, we also must do much more. We will never really be honest with ourselves if we don’t first establish the facts.

Read Part 2 of 100 Voices: #AllAgainstRacism in the current issue of Hot Press:

Special thanks to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for their support in this project.