Polish migrants’ rights organsation Forum Polonia is launching today (10.05.2024) an awareness-raising campaign to inform and encourage the Polish community to vote in the upcoming European Parliament elections. The organisation decided to run the campaign to fill in the gap left by civil society focusing mostly on registering migrants for the local elections. Nearly 300,000 migrants of voting age living in Ireland hold an EU passport and can transfer their voting rights for the EU election to Ireland.
Barnaba Dorda, Chair of Forum Polonia said ‘EU migrants and amongst them Polish migrants are untaped voting block when it comes to the European Parliament elections. As per the 2022 Census, 1 in 2 voting-age migrants living in Ireland hold an EU passport. However, only 1 in 4 EU migrants living in Ireland are registered to vote in Ireland. Sadly, there is a virtually non-existent effort from the governed, political parties, and the civil society to encourage EU migrants to vote on Irish EU election candidates.’
Migrants holding a passport from one of the 27 EU countries wishing to vote on Irish EU election candidates have till Monday 20th of May to register as voters.
The organisation plans an online campaign using videos and posters, in-person registration drives around Dublin, and webinars to reach the Polish community outside Dublin. Following the registration deadline the organisation will continue with the campaign to encourage Polish migrants to go out and vote on June 7th.
Teresa Buczkowska, Forum Polonia Secretary, and project coordinator said ‘The EU elections provide an important avenue for migrants to influence high-level politics beyond national elections. It is also important for migrants to participate in electing Irish representatives in the European Parliament as we live in Ireland, we pay taxes here and it is Irish politicians who influence our daily quality of life with their decisions. Our choices must be represented too.’
The campaign is made possible through the generous funding of the Polish Embassy in Ireland which also include ecouraging active participation in local election.
Members of Ireland’s Polish community gathered outside Leinster House on 1st of May 2024 to mark the 20th anniversary of Poland joining the EU. Organised by Forum Polonia, the Polish migrants’ rights organisation, the gathering highlighted the experiences of the 123,000 Polish migrants who have made Ireland their home.
Following the gathering, Polish community representatives met with Minister of State for Community Development, Integration and Charities Joe O’Brien TD in Leinster House. Minister O’Brien holds special responsibilities for integration.
The meeting was an invitation to the Government to collaborate with Polish organisations to advance the inclusion of the Polish community in public life.
Speaking at the event, Barnaba Dorda, Chair of Forum Polonia said, “The Polish community is one of the largest minorities in Ireland with Polish being the third most spoken language after English and Irish. Over the last 20 years, we have blended in well with Irish society due to our EU citizenship status as well as similarities in a history of struggle for independence, but we have a long way to go when it comes to access to integration supports and representation in public life and decision-making processes.”
One in 50 Irish residents are Polish but the community have been underrepresented in politics in Ireland over the last 20 years and still struggle to access integrations supports like programmes supporting political participation, employment bridging schemes, and good quality English classes.
Mr Dorda continued, “Twenty per cent of Polish migrants do not speak English or do not speak it well according to the CSO. Without proficiency in English, Polish migrants face barriers in healthcare, education, social integration and employment.
“We know that there’s a documented pattern of discrimination against Eastern Europeans, among them Polish workers, who earn 40% less than their Irish counterparts. And we know that migrants are disproportionately falling into homelessness with one in four newly presented homeless being EU migrants. The Dublin-based Polish homeless organisation ‘Barka’ is expanding to Limerick and Cork due to increased demands for services, with Romanians and Poles most often seeking support.”
Political Representation
Teresa Buczkowska, Coordinator of Forum Polonia said, “We have a very vibrant Polish community that is active at a local level and is willing to participate in public life when supported and invited. However, the gaps in support and restrictions in accessing diversity and inclusion programmes and funding options diminish our civic and political participation.”
Polish migrants, due to their EU status, are at times restricted from accessing integration services, programmes, and funding reserved for migrants originating from outside the European Union.
‘Sometimes it feels that we are considered too diverse to be included and not diverse enough to be supported. That is a paradox of inclusion. Our understanding of diversity must expand otherwise migrant communities such as Polish will continuously fall between gaps of inclusion,’ said Ms Buczkowska.
Wojciech Bialek, Deputy Chair of Forum Polonia, has delivered essential integration support for the Polish and Ukrainian community both locally and nationally. He said, “The Polish migrant community made a significant contribution to Ireland, and we have more to offer. Many of our essential workers are Polish. We also played an instrumental role in supporting Ukrainian refugees as we know what it means to be a migrant in a new country. We need to be supported in continuing to do so.”
Every gesture of solidarity with the victims of the war in Ukraine counts. On our website we sourced and gathered information from various websites on how you can support people in Ukraine. The main aim is to provide direct links to these organisations that provides help to refugees in Poland and/or are based in Ukraine. If you want to help you will find links here to reliable fundraising, non governmental organisation from Ukraine, Poland and Ireland, institutions and other entities.
Migrant communities, including the Polish community, have been ineffectively engaged with during the pandemic, and the State needs to do more to engage migrant groups if the country is to fully recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. That’s according to Forum Polonia, a network organisation for Polish community groups, that met recently to discuss the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on the Polish community in Ireland.
We would like to invite you to Poland and Ireland: A Focus on Integration, a seminar examining the links between Ireland and Poland and the challenges of integration.
The event will take place in the Humanities Institute UCD, at 1.30pm on Monday, March 9th as part of the PolskaÉire 2015 Festival. For more information/RSVP niamh.nestor@ucd.ie, or 0863961430 All welcome!
