Language

Over on politics.ie an article from the polish radio service is highlighted which says.

The Polish community in Ireland appeal to the authorities of that country to make Polish the third official language, after English and Irish. It’s natural, they say. We are now the second largest nation of Ireland, so we should enjoy our right to speak Polish in your Irish offices and institutions, they claim. Not an easy task, though, because it would require to change the Irish constitution. After the EU enlargement in 2004 Ireland was one of three member states opening the labor market for the newcomers without any limitation. Since that time a huge number of Poles have arrived. No one really knows, how many. Some sources say that it’s only 65 thousand and some mention unbelievable 500 thousand. Compared to several million citizens of the Republic of Ireland, it’s quite a few, anyway, points out RZECZPOSPOLITA.

Now if the point is integration, stability then this is a no no.

Now Fine Gael’s Dennis Naughten makes a good point

“We cannot achieve integration or even participation in our society unless we face up to the deficits in our education. Key to this among our immigrant community is the language barrier, which is becoming the key divisive factor in our country. Unless the most marginalised in our society have competence in the English language, both spoken and written, then this country will not achieve integrated communities,” Deputy Naughten said.

In his first official address as Fine Gael Immigration & Integration Spokesman, Deputy Naughten said: ‘having spoken to a number of school Principals at both primary and secondary level over the last number of weeks, it is clear that language support and general support from the Department of Education in meeting this challenge is failing to address this key deficit’.

Deputy Naughten told the 27 different nationalities present that: ‘unless children of all nationalities can communicate and understand they will be lost in the school setting and in the wider society. This not only applies to foreign-born children but our own children who have been denied adequate supports such as speech therapy and other classroom assistance

Surely our aim for immigrates is for them to feel at home in the society and I know this seems contradictory but if they have to speak the language of this country they will feel more like Ireland is their home. If they are able to live their lives without resorting out of their comfort level we may well see a gettoisation of peoples, where they live and work amongst themselves and communicating among themselves and staying out of Irish society. The language barrier has to be breached.

It needs to be breached especially because in this changing landscape we need a skilled educated workforce and according to the Irish Examiner 58% of non-UK and Irish nationals have third level education compared to 28% here. If they are to reach their potential in Ireland and benefit us then we need them to be able to fit into the Irish working life.

I always wonder about Labour a bit. Roisin Shorthall has highlighted the fraud rate among non-nationals as 14%. This is the kind of figure that worries alot of people about immigrants. Making people think we are letting in criminals. But there needs to be a bit of perspective on this that Labour seems to have missed. 10% of the population in Immigrants also they are young and in many cases young males. So this 10% has a far higher ration of people in criminal age (how many pensioners are in gangs? ) and thus would result in this 10% having a slightly higher crime rate then their share of the population has. I would like to see a break down of the fraud figures with respect to the 15-35 native population. Maybe Labour are going to take my advice and re-build on a slightly anti-immigration platform. It of course doesn’t dismiss the fact that we are importing criminals but just highlighting that we are importing people and some people are criminals. The fraud costs us €31.6m. How much do immigrants in total make us. My guess more.

But again if we ignore this fact and simply dismiss it like I have done above then we will not lessen the support for immigration in Ireland neither will calling from Polish to be the third official language help in building harmony. More co-operation needs to be put in place between the police forces in these different countries so that if someone is coming in is known to be a criminal then we have to be more watchful if not refusing them entry. Which may make Ireland’s opt-out of the EU Reform Treaty on Justice a mistake