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SAMMY AKOREDE IS a revenue protection officer with Transdev, the operator of the Luas. This means part of his role requires checking tickets on trams to make sure people have a valid ticket to travel.
He’s lived in Ireland for 17 years, and worked with the Luas for 12. He has been promoted to a manager in his work but still inspects tickets on trams from time to time.
On Dublin’s Dame Street yesterday, at the launch of a new anti-racism campaign on public transport, Akorede told TheJournal.ie that racism is a problem that he and colleagues still face regularly.
“It affects my colleagues and I greatly to be honest,” he said. “Over the last few years, since the inception of Luas, we’ve encountered racial abuse the likes of which shouldn’t even be mentioned on tv.
It’s as bad as it could be… we believe that there is still much to be done to counteract racism in Ireland.
We asked Akorede how often he would have to deal with racist abuse.
“To be honest,” he said, “every day”.
“We operate an open system, which means the tram gets from one point to another. The driver just opens the door. So if someone has abused you, when you reach the next stop they just walk away.
[They go] without any consequences. They will definitely be back again and do it.
He explained how internal procedures are set in place to record incidences of abuse, including racial abuse, on trams.
Sammy said that, in most cases, the gardaí are not called as the abusers are often gone within minutes of an incident occurring.
“Cases like abuse, racial abuse – people just walk away,” he said. “They always come back and do it again, which is a problem. We need to have consequences for actions like that.
There’s no way to rationalise how you get over it. You just do. It’s an emotional thing. You’re there at work… and you get serious abuse. People throwing bananas at you, telling you to go back to your country just for asking to see a ticket.
He said that he has mainly experienced racism in his workplace since he came to Ireland from Nigeria.
He did say that experiences of racist behaviour have certainly decreased in recent years, but added that “there’s still a lot of work to be done”.
“I was spat at”
Sydney Mthi is a driver for Dublin Bus. He’s been with the company for the past 12 years.
He said that racism is not something that he would experience on a regular basis, “but it does happen, it exists”.
“Maybe once in a month you would have an incident,” Mthi said.
He said that most of the abuse he receives is verbal.
“If you approach someone about not paying a fare, then it can quickly turn into something racial,” he said. “You do get annoyed about it but at the same time there’s not much you can do.
You just have to let it go.
Mthi said that it’s something that can be reported, but the abuse he gets is mostly from young people and teenagers.
He agreed with Akorede that incidents of racial abuse have gotten less frequent over the years but said that there are still problems, and that he doesn’t encounter racist abuse that often outside of work.
Having said that, about two or three months ago, somebody spat at me on D’Olier Street. That was horrible. It stays with you a long time. I’m living in Ireland 17 years and that’s the worst thing that has happened.
Mthi added that often regulars on his bus route would speak up to defend him if another passenger has been abusive on the bus.
“We’re all made of the same stuff”
As part of the new anti-racism initiative on our transport network, a huge poster bearing the message “we’re all made of the same stuff… say no to racism” has been placed on Dublin’s Dame Street.
The diversity of the transport workforce was also highlighted at the launch of the campaign on the same street in the capital yesterday.
Ethnic minorities make up 17% of Dublin Bus’ workforce, for example. Bus Éireann counts staff from 33 different backgrounds among its workers, and 30 different nationalities make up the 264-strong Transdev (Luas operator) workforce.
In all, a total of 1,065 posters will be displayed on Ireland’s transport system promoting this anti-racism message over the next few weeks.
The campaign is coordinated by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, and is now in its fifth year.
Its CEO, Brian Killoran, told TheJournal.ie that 20% of the racist incidents that are reported to the Immigrant Council stem from public transport.
“The staff at the companies are much more diverse now than they were 15 years ago,” he said. “Sometimes they are targeted by members of the public, or sometimes it is members of the public on each other.
The nature of it varies from verbal things right up the way to assaults. The impact of it is always serious. If somebody is getting racially abused on a weekly basis in various settings, that has a massive impact on someone’s consciousness or just their ability to feel at home.
Killoran said that many instances of racial abuse do not get reported but that, through campaigns such as this one, there are often spikes in the number of cases brought to the attention of the Immigrant Council.
“People would say frequently to us ‘there’s no racism in Ireland’. We’d say it’s not to the same extent you’d see in other countries,” he said.
We don’t have organised racist parties, we don’t have an organised far-right and we don’t have anything like what’s going on internationally at the moment. But that doesn’t mean [racism] is not there.
Killoran said integration has happened naturally over the last few decades in many Irish communities, but that “we’re behind the curve” in having policies and diversity strategies in workplaces in this country.
“As an organisation we’re trying to work with companies to develop diversity strategies,” he said. “It may be seen as lower down the list of priorities, but actually now that staff are so diverse, it’s essential to get in before any tension starts.”
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No it dosent I left school when I was 5 1/2 old I worked in a coal mine then on a milk float when I was 8yrs old I started work in Dublin airport sweeping the floors, they obviously liked what they saw cause by the age of 11 I was flying trans Atlantic flights, I didn’t want to get stuck in a rut so I left to become a kitchen porter in great ormond street hospital, I was quickly moved up through the ranks to become "head of difficult and really complicated brain surgery" i was the inspiration for the hit tv show doogie howser (I directed three episodes) in my spare time while not doing difficult and really complicated brain surgery I invented the Internet. At the age of 15 I left the hospital and started up a small company called "apple" by the age of 16 I swam around the world twice, then I became a race car driver, an astronaut, a professional footballer and i built a hadron collider, I helped steven Hawkins out with a couple of his Theories, I wrestled a lion , beat a gorilla in an arm wrestling match, out swam a shark and beat a cheetah in a race. I’ve reinvented how we think about quantum physics and the space time continuum, to name but a few things I’ve done without my leaving cert
Forrest? Is that you? ;-)
It used to matter. For most it won’t, because there is no future.
Please, less of the melodrama.
What a ridiculous question. Of course it bloody does – it determines your future.
Of course there’s always an exception to every rule but it’s probably the most important exam in your life.
What a ridiculous comment, that’s just what you have been led to believe.
I know some guy who left school at 16, did an apprenticeship then went into engineering and had a masters at 25 and he is very well off. Said he hated school.
It can be beneficial to do well in your leaving but I will stand by my words when I say …….
"it does NOT always determine your future!"
I failed mine twice! I went on to get a Bachelors Degree in Engineering followed by a successful career.
The leaving cert is important. It’s not critical, it’s just important.
As i said – there’s an exception to every rule. And your examples are the exceptions. For the other 99% who aren’t exceptions, yes , the LC is the most important exam they’ll do in their life.
If it’s so unimportant, and the results don’t matter, and you can do whatever you want without it…
…why the hell did we make them do it in the first place?
Of course it matters. Until a college admissions office says that they’re abandoning the points system to determine if you can enter college, it’s always going to matter, unless your chosen profession doesn’t require a college degree (and we don’t have as many of those jobs as other countries do).
The fact that where you are at 40 is something that nobody in the world can predict at 18 is the thing to keep in mind here, not some patronising platitude that something you’ve spent two years of your life or more working towards suddenly doesn’t matter on the day you get your results from those years of work…
I left school at 13 I am 40 now and heading into my final year of a honours degree in psychology with aspirations to continue on to master an phd level. I wouldn’t say missing the leaving or junior cert held me back if any thing getting out into life has giving more life experience for the field I aiming for.
These articles are just for people who didn’t do so well so they don’t feel so bad today. I needed my leaving, i did ok, not brilliant, not terrible, I’m now doing a PhD in engineering. I never thought i’d get to that stage but life throws you up some weird opportunities. I also failed first year in college. Some people don’t need a leaving but to be fair they are the minority. i think the way the construction industry is now, not going to college is a poor choice if you have the ability and drive to succeed in life. I might finish my PhD and travel the world or work as a shop assistant, but at least i have a fall back. If i dropped out or did poorly in the leaving i wouldn’t have choices like that to make. I would have two choices, work in a minimum wage job or the dole. Maybe a low paying job will spur people on to great things in the future but the vast majority will be stuck in those jobs for a looong time.
Sorry to disagree Aidan, I’ve a friend who didn’t go to college. Sat A levels in England and moved over here to work. Started as floor staff in a shop within 4 years he had been elevated to district manager through his own drive and initiative. I’ve friends who dropped out and are doing quite well as mountain guides for climbing companies in Scotland following their passion. And I’ve friends who finished degrees with 2.1 or 1.1 results and have been working in Dominos and been on the dole for the last few years. For all of these people the LC was worthless.
For those who do badly and join the dole que and spend their lives not trying the leaving cert was a bit of a pointless venture and they probably did badly. For those who will go on to perhaps go to college, or do an apprenticeship or try to work their way up a few ladders from the ground and who’ll make some effort and do a little work it may count, but those people will always succeed anyway to some degree or another. Those people are admirable. They’re the people who will have done at least reasonably today.
After just finishing a BSc I was just sitting around a few nights ago with friends from my year (school) thinking about where life was taking us all. It’s weird. People you always had pegged as triers, go getters, likely to do well. With very little plan to do anything. So few of them are following the path of their degrees. People who got first class honors, struggling to find work. Everyone who went through college emmigrating for a half decent job. It’s the ones who flunked out at some stage that are now not forced to go abroad. But they’re also the ones who don’t have the initiative and guts to pack up and go in search of their fortune.
No the leaving cert isn’t that important, after college the interest in what you got in it is pretty minimal. Employers seem more interested in your references, work experience, the impression they get of you in an interview and how you do in tests they give you. Jobs tend to be too specific to care about how you did in such a broad set of exams. And if you get through college on your first attempt (which is actually pretty important), you’ve got a lot of time to play around with to find out what it is you need to do to make yourself employable to the right people, or to get what you need to start your own business. You’ll be 17/18 after the LC. That’s very young indeed.
It counts now. How much it defines the direction of your life in the future is up to you. I do not know one person who knew in any great detail at the age of 17 what they would be doing at the age of 30. It’s a tool to help you determine how to get to where you want to go if you treat it with the right attitude.
Failure at LC level will not define who you are unless you allow it to. There are ways around a lot of obstacles in life and Leaving Cert results are not that different in the grand scheme of things. You control a lot of your destiny as far as the leaving cert is concerned (although you need to know this before today), not vice versa.
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