Minority ethnic issues ‘an afterthought’ in NI

Published today, it found that a lack of data and information on these communities leads to poor or patchy services.

Committee Chairman, Simon Hoare MP said: “Northern Ireland politics and public life has been understandably dominated by Green/Orange discourse. However, Northern Ireland is increasingly becoming more than Green and Orange and people from a range of other communities feel overlooked in politics and policy making. We urge NI civil society to encourage greater representation of minority ethnic people in their own organisations, so that politics can be done ‘with’ and not ‘to’ them.”

He continued: “Collection of accurate ethnic monitoring data bespoke to Northern Ireland is vital for tackling social inequalities and making effective policy. Its absence is lamentable; making it difficult for organisations to identify service needs of communities and reliant on decade-old census data, leaving little insight on the scale of demand or whether equality initiatives are succeeding.“

The conservative MP added: “With families fleeing the conflict in Ukraine and the Afghan resettlement scheme set to begin we need to collectively prepare to welcome people traumatised by having to leave their homelands.

“While the publication of a draft Refugee Integration Strategy for Northern Ireland is welcome, a final strategy needs to be delivered at pace. We think greater use of expertise from other parts of the UK more familiar with these issues would facilitate the implementation of effective policy to the benefit of Northern Irish society.”