Opinion

Newton Emerson: There is a way to address concerns over Irish language jobs discrimination

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Turas Manager, Linda Ervine, who is a sister-in-law of the late PUP leader David Ervine and who works to promote Irish among the Protestant community. Picture by Mal McCann
Turas Manager, Linda Ervine, who is a sister-in-law of the late PUP leader David Ervine and who works to promote Irish among the Protestant community. Picture by Mal McCann Turas Manager, Linda Ervine, who is a sister-in-law of the late PUP leader David Ervine and who works to promote Irish among the Protestant community. Picture by Mal McCann

I have been mercilessly slagged off on Twitter over a line in my column last week, saying there are probably more Protestants learning to fly a helicopter than learning Irish.

Campaigner and Irish teacher Linda Ervine contacted her nearest flying club and established there may in fact be ten times as many Protestants learning Irish as learning to fly, at least in the greater east Belfast area.

Ervine was also kind enough to address the substantive point in my article, regarding Protestant fears of job discrimination.

This has become the main unionist concern around an Irish language act, after Conradh na Gaeilge published proposals for a 10 per cent Gaeilgeoirí recruitment quota across the public sector.

Linda Ervine: I realised Irish belonged to me - a Protestant - and I fell in love with itOpens in new window ]

Ervine thinks this issue should be “easily resolved” by having “one central Gaelic unit in Stormont rather than quotas in the civil service.”

The difference between Conradh na Gaeilge and Ervine’s positions is what is officially known as the rights-based versus the scheme-based approach.

In a rights-based approach, you would have the right to expect all your dealings with the state to be conducted in Irish, then and there - hence the need for a quota of Irish speakers across the public sector.

In a scheme-based approach, every public body would produce a plan to serve English and Irish speakers equally. This would typically mean referring Irish inquiries to specialist Irish-speaking staff.

Is the scheme-based approach second best? The terminology unfortunately suggests so. However, schemes can be fully compatible with language and cultural rights, even where they serve significant populations of everyday speakers.

Welsh language legislation, which campaigners here see as a model, is scheme-based and considered a great success. The purpose of the Welsh language commissioner is to ensure every public body has an effective scheme and delivers it.

In the Republic, conversely, speaking Irish with the state has always been a right, yet it can only be randomly and rarely exercised.

The particular advantage of the scheme-based approach in Northern Ireland is that it solves the issue of discrimination.

Making Irish a requirement for specialist Irish-speaking jobs is a very different proposition from making Irish an advantage in all public sector jobs, enforced by quota.

One reason so much hope and attention is focused on Protestants learning Irish is that in theory they make the discrimination issue go away, rendering Irish no more selective a qualification than IT or accounting. In practice, this is a delusion of Ulster-Scots proportions.

The equality impact assessment undertaken during Sinn Féin’s last attempt at Irish language legislation, in 2015, was crystal clear: just 2 per cent of Protestants said they had some knowledge of Irish. Even ten times as many learning the language as learning to fly cannot make it a neutral criteria.

The realistic way to address discrimination is a scheme-based approach, as Ervine herself agrees.

How close is Stormont to agreeing this?

In the few months after the 2006 St Andrew’s agreement, when the Northern Ireland Office made speedy progress towards an act, it settled on a scheme-based approach. The DUP may reflect on what it lost by scuppering that process.

Unionists are now discussing an act mainly in ‘standalone’ versus ‘culture act’ terms.

Alliance has specifically said it wants a scheme-based Irish language act.

Most Irish-language groups want a rights-based act.

In July this year, Sinn Féin former minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir dismissed Conradh na Gaeilge’s 10 per cent quota as “bunkum.” However, his party has refused to rule out quotas altogether and its 2015 draft bill, the basis for current Stormont negotiations, seeks “affirmative action” across the public sector.

Some conceptual confusion is understandable: delivering rights would still require schemes, while the opposite approach creates, in effect, a right to a scheme.

But as our entire political system is deadlocked over an Irish language act, failing to clear up its most basic outline is inexcusable. Without one, as with Brexit, how can we even start to address the details?

The 2015 bill provides a good illustration of the difference between a right and a scheme in its section on Irish in the courts.

Instead of guaranteeing interpreters for those using Irish (the scheme for other languages now) the bill requires “the state or public body” in civil proceedings to conduct itself in Irish if “the other party” demands it.

Delivering this philosophy across all public services would involve the greatest single policy of official discrimination in Northern Ireland’s history.

It is helpful that Ervine, who supports an act, has spoken against it.

newton@irishnews.com