A response to a Parliamentary Question from Rural Independent TD for Laois/Offaly, Carol Nolan, has disclosed that Dr. Ebun Joseph, the Special Rapporteur for the National Action Plan Against Racism, will receive a stipend of €100,000 over four years for her work in that position.
Joseph will be supported by two staff in that position.
Members of the Advisory Committee, which has been established to support the work of the Special Rapporteur, will also be eligible “to have their travel and subsistence costs met (in accordance with agreed civil service rates) where meetings occur in person.”
Minister Roderic O’Gorman also stated that the position of Special Rapporteur was filled following an open competition, followed by a short-listing of applicants and then a series of interviews to decide on who would get the job. As we know the job has gone to Dr. Ebun Joseph, whose views on Irish society have been regarded by some as representing a very particular ideological position.
One of Dr. Ebun Joseph’s main concerns about racist Ireland in which she has been forced to battle her way to survival against all odds has been the systemic barriers placed in the way of black people getting jobs. She even went to the trouble of writing a book on it entitled Critical Race Theory and Inequality in the Labour Market: Racial Stratifications in Ireland.
Miraculously she appears to have escaped any of that stratifying discrimination and indeed, if her CV is any indication, has managed to redress the imbalance by holding down several positions at the same time. At one time, according to her Linkedin page, Joseph was simultaneously CEO and founder of Antiracism and Black Studies, a lecturer in UCD in black studies, a career consultant with the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, a lecturer in sociology in Trinity College Dublin, and a columnist with the Dublin Inquirer.
Her primary degree was a Bachelor of Science in microbiology in 1991 from the University of Benin in Nigeria. At some stage after that she moved to Britain and then apparently to Ireland around 2002. Perhaps she had solved racism in Blighty and decided selflessly to do the same of Paddy and Mary,
Since then, she has been struggling through the institutions to remind us all of how much the system works against members of the Nigerian bourgeoisie who move to Ireland. A struggle belatedly recognised by her appointment as Special Rapporteur for the National Action Plan Against Racism.
Dr. Joseph also has her own page on the Advance HE site. This is the English NGO which runs the Athena SWAN Equality, Diversity and Inclusion caper in Irish third level educational institutions and in other state funded bodies such as the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI.) Does that mean that she approves of the Athena SWAN views regarding the criminalization of “deadnaming” trans people which we have shown to be at odds with the legal position in the Irish state as outlined by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee?
Gript has reported numerous times on the role of this left liberal British Labour Party/state connected entity which, for some bizarre reason, has been given control over framing EDI policies in Irish institutions. It dispenses Gold, Silver and Bronze awards to those who – like the children attending Protestant Victorian missionary schools in Dr. Joseph’s homeland – have pleased their mentors. Ironic is it not?
If there must be a National Plan Against Racism and a Special Rapporteur then By Jaysus you are saying to yourself, there ought also be an Advisory Committee. And so it came to pass. For when Minister for State at the Department of Eradicating Meanness and Naughty Doings (DEMAND), Joe O’Brien, elevated Dr. Joseph as Racism Czar he made sure that she would be surrounded and advised by a broad cross-section of critical voices.
I am being facetious but in the Ministerial reply to Carol Nolan’s question it is stated that the Advisory Committee is comprised of a “membership from a cross section of society.” Well, you can judge for yourself.
The members are Dr. Niloufar Omidi who is part of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion project at the University of Limerick. She has a first class honours in law from the Islamic Azad University in Tehran and used to work for Dr. Lucy Michael’s Consultancy business until last year. Michael was one of the key promoters of the “hate speech” legislation.
Another of the advisors is Mohammad Naeem who is a “United Nations Youth Delegate.” Naeem is Vice President of the union for people who are in secondary schools, no less. Rachel Coffey is on the National Youth Council where she bats for Traveller and Roma “visibility.” Councillor and former Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu you will know.
Travellers and Roma – I would genuinely love to hear, as would some Travellers of my acquaintance, what the exact connection is some day – are also represented on the Advisory Committee by Martin Collins.
Another old friend of Gript’s Shane O’Curry of the Irish section (INAR) of the massively well corporate and EU funded European Network Against Racism (ENAR) also gets a spot. Last year Gary Kavanagh of this parish had the audacity to throw his eye over the research standards of O’Curry’s outfit when it came to reportage of the racist incidents which they share with us in their annual reports.
Dr. James Carr is a professor of sociology in the University of Limerick. Now, don’t take me up wrong but I always find myself triggered by such a title. But don’t mind an oul curmudgeon such as myself. Carr has a doctorate in Islamophobia but before Shane and the boys start to speed dial Hope and Courage or the Guards he is very much against it.
To the extent that a bit like the great Arabist Lawrence of Arabia he has become an advocate for Muslims generally and has contributed widely to Muslim yearbooks published overseas including the Irish section of a European Islamophobia Report published in Ankara, Turkey, of all places. He also received funding from the Soros Open Society foundation for a report on “Islamophobia in Dublin.”
Particia Munatsi is a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer and according to her biography on the University College of Dublin alumni site she is the “policy lead” for Shane O’Curry’s Network Against Racism. Won’t they be surprised when they bump into one another at the first meeting. David Joyce is a policy officer for equality with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Gina Miyagewa co-ordinates health for Roma with the HSE.
This is the cross section of the community that will be monitoring you over the next four years. Ya’ll be careful out there you hear?