Ireland ‘must act’ to avoid race crisis

IRELAND must seize the window of opportunity it has to ensure it doesn’t end up with the same racial problems as Paris, Amsterdam and London, a community activist said yesterday.

Fergus McCabe, who has worked in Dublin’s north inner city for 30 years, said there have been incidents in the area of groups of Irish children and foreign nationals “squaring up” to each other on the street.

“We either try to get things right now, while we have a window of opportunity, or we will be facing the sort of problems we see in other countries,” he said.

Mr McCabe runs a neighbourhood youth project in the area and has helped set up a Foreign National Young People’s (KNYP) group to try to improve integration of local children and those from other countries.

He will address a conference on integration today organised by the Irish Refugee Council and the KNYP, which will be attended by Integration Minister Conor Lenihan.

Mr McCabe said the huge increase in the number of foreign nationals in areas like Dublin’s north inner city had been a big shock for the local community, which has had its own share of social and economic difficulties.

“There’s a lot of fear among some, in some cases there’s downright opposition and there’s a fair bit of racism. Much has happened so quickly and we haven’t done enough to emphasise the positive aspects of immigration.

“There have been a couple of occasions where groups of Irish kids and groups of kids from outside the country have squared up to each other. It’s only small scale so far.

“That’s why it’s very important that, as early as possible, we try to get involved with local kids and foreign kids and increase the opportunities for them to mix and integrate in youth clubs and sports clubs.”

He added: “If we fail to do it, we just have to look at Paris, we just have to look at Amsterdam, we just have to look at some of the ghettos in London and the inter-racial conflicts. We don’t want to go down that road.”

He said a lot of good work was happening in schools, in the FAI and the GAA and in groups such as Sports Against Racism, but said the whole approach needed to be more consistent and coherent.