Facts Bust the Discrimination Myth – Allister Backs Call to End Discrimination in Teaching
22 April 2013
Below is a speech made by North Antrim MLA Jim Allister calling for the removal of the requirement for all teachers in Maintained Schools to have a certificate of Catholic education:
“For decades, it was peddled around the world that Northern Ireland was this place of rampant discrimination, particularly against Catholics. Of course, we have had legislation on this very topic of discrimination since 1976. The supreme irony — and the fact — is that, since 1976, the only lawful discrimination that has been permitted in Northern Ireland has been against Protestants, first of all in respect of the 50:50 discriminatory rule in police recruitment and, for decades now, this overtly discriminatory requirement for a certificate of Catholic education if you want to teach in the maintained sector. So, the truth is often different from the fiction that is peddled, and the fiction that has been peddled around the world perishes on this rock, as it does on so many other rocks of truth. The reality is that the only lawful discrimination permitted here has indeed been against Protestants.
“The question for all in the House is whether they have any appetite or willingness to address that. Do Members, particularly those who were the chief peddlers around the world of the notion of discrimination in Northern Ireland, have any intention of grasping the nettle? It seems that the party of John Hume, chief proponent of Northern Ireland as a place of discrimination, is not prepared to address the issue. Indeed, we heard Mr Eastwood make the quite ludicrous suggestion that retaining the certificate was all a matter of logic. Well, I am sorry. As Mr Craig asked this in the debate, where is the Catholicism that must be protected in the teaching of mathematics, geography, English, IT and so on? I could go on. There is none. So, this shield that the certificate is supposed to be is a fiction, because it is not necessary to protect the ethos of Catholic schools. Yes, in the very select area of the teaching of religious education there may be a case for selection of teachers on a very particular basis, but not on the generality that is being applied across the board. There can be no justification, therefore, for clinging to that certificate.
“This is a basic issue of equality. It is a matter of regret that the Department with responsibility for equality, OFMDFM, is absent here today. Indeed, in response to a variety of questions on this very topic, some from me and some from others, the Department indicated that it had no inclination or intention to ever address this inequality.
“I suppose it is not here because the likelihood is that it cannot agree about this, yet we had a contribution from Sinn Féin in this House today saying that it supports the motion. If it supports the motion, what are its Ministers in OFMDFM doing about it? If the DUP supports the motion, why can that collection of Ministers not do something about it? I think one has to test the delivery of that Department on the affirmations that we have heard today. I suspect it would be found very far wanting.
“I support the motion. It is the right thing to do, and it should have been done years ago.”
