Allister asks why Equality Commission has buried inconvenient report
22 May 2012
TUV Leader Jim Allister has questioned why an Equality Commission report, which demonstrates that over the last 20 years it is Protestants who have been disadvantaged in the labour market, has been buried.
“Trends in Community Proportions of Applications and Appointments to the Public and Private Sectors, produced in March 2012, is an official analysis of fair employment monitoring for 20 years from 1991. At a time when the popular perception that has taken root across the world is of Catholics, not Protestants, struggling to find jobs, this report debunks all that propaganda.
“It plainly shows that in both the public and private sectors for the last 20 years that when a Protestant applies for a job they have a lower success rate than Catholic applicants.
“In the public sector from 1991-2000 whereas 57.4% of the applicants were Protestants only 56.9% of the appointees were Protestants, and in the next 10 years, 2001-10 the situation worsened with a 1.6% deficit between applications and appointments (see App 3 of report). In the private sector too, Protestants fare worst and, indeed, in the latest year, 2010, there was over a 1% deficit.
“These are disturbing figures, not just in regard to the disadvantage being suffered by Protestants in applying for jobs, but they demonstrate that for years false propaganda has been peddled as gospel. Interestingly, in the 1990s in the run up to the clamour for more equality legislation, culminating in Section 75 of the 1998 Act, the truth is that Protestants were finding it harder than Catholics to successfully apply for jobs.
“Since these findings relate to both the private and public sectors I will be pressing both DETI and DFP for a response.
“I must also express dismay at how this report has been buried, with no fanfare of publicity from the Equality Commission, such as I suspect would have happened if the trend had been anti-Catholic. It seems in our current political dispensation anti-Protestant bias is so acceptable that it doesn’t even merit publication, never mind comment.
“I trust there now will be journalists willing to drill into this report and ask how this situation has come about. I will be pressing the Equality Commission and have written in the terms below to its Chairman.”
To Chief Commissioner, Equality Commission for NI,
Dear Mr Wardlow,
re: Trends in Community Proportions of Applications and Appointments to the Private and Public Sectors
I refer to the above publication, which I found most informative.
My first query is as to how, if at all, the Commission publicised the outcome of this important piece of work? I am very surprised to have seen no press coverage and enquire, therefore, if the Commission even issued a press release drawing attention to it, and, if not, why not?
The reason I believe this is an important publication is because in the context of many too readily making assumptions about discrimination and peddling perceptions as facts, this report debunks much of that, demonstrating that there certainly is no pattern of lack of equality of opportunity for Catholic job seekers, if anything it is Protestants who fare worse in both the public and private sectors. As an Equality Commission I would have expected you to want to draw attention to this, not least to counter some of the false perceptions which continue to be peddled.
So, I'd like to hear what the Commission now proposes to do with this report and what steps it will take on foot of it.
Indeed, given the historic perspective of reality which this report now gives for the years running up to the introduction of Section 75 in 1998, will the Commission now be reviewing the continuing justification for our plethora of 'equality laws'?
I look forward to hearing from you on these matters.
Yours sincerely,
