Parallel British Reforms
Within Northern Ireland itself, reforms had begun after the British government suspended the Parliament of Northern Ireland in March 1972, starting with the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1976. This was further amended in 1989. In 1999 the Fair Employment and Treatment Order 1998 became law.
Since then complaints are handled by the Fair Employment Commission for Northern Ireland, now a part of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, a non-governmental but publicly-funded agency. The MacBride Principles certainly speeded the reform process in the 1980s, but it is debatable whether they contributed significantly after 1989. In a 2003 report the Irish National Caucus felt that the reforms had not yet achieved complete parity, emphasising that Northern Irish Catholics were still more likely to be unemployed and undereducated, and less likely to work in managerial positions, than other groups, and calling for affirmative action policies.
Read more about this topic: Mac Bride Principles
Famous quotes containing the words parallel, british and/or reforms:
“As I look at the human story I see two stories. They run parallel and never meet. One is of people who live, as they can or must, the events that arrive; the other is of people who live, as they intend, the events they create.”
—Margaret Anderson (18861973)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of style. But while stylederiving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tabletssuggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. Taste: The Story of an Idea, Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)