WIDESPREAD discrimination against the Irish community in Britain, particularly within the criminal justice system, cannot be solved without effective legislation, according to a report published yesterday by Irish groups and the National Association of Probation Officers.
One of the report's key recommendations is that in order to avoid discrimination, Irish people in Britain should be included as a distinct ethnic minority in all equal opportunity programmes. In particular, the British government should ensure there is an "Irish dimension" to all studies dealing with discrimination and racial harassment.
In gathering evidence for the report, the Action Group for Irish Youth and the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas used the "widest possible definition of Irish." This was necessary, the report said, because of the particular experiences of Irish people in Britain, who often find their ethnicity decided for them by official organisations.
Even when the difficulties surrounding the definitions of "Irish" have been taken into consideration, however, the report suggests that Irish people are disproportionately stopped by the police; are disproportionately the victims of street crime are more likely to be sent to prison than other ethnic groups and are over represented in remands into custody.
Generations of Irish immigrants have settled in Britain, and are by far the largest ethnic minority group. According to the 1991 census, 850,000 Irish born people resided in Britain, with 32 per cent living in the Greater London area.
However, as a minority, the report suggests that most anti discriminatory initiatives in Britain have not dealt with Irish people as a separate category. Consequently, the British criminal justice system, for example, is ill equipped to avoid discrimination against Irish people and urgently needs to address this "historically based" problem if the Irish community is to have confidence in British law.
No single area of British law is more "ineffective" and should be more subject to independent review than the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), according to the report.
Using a 10 year study of the PTA as the basis for its recommendations, the report drew up a picture of the type of person "most likely" to be detained under the legislation. It found that students, a person who has had contact with Sinn Fein or those whose families live in nationalist areas in Northern Ireland were being targeted by British police.