Dr. Sindy Joyce:

I agree with Mr. Joyce. There has been a shift in the living circumstances of Irish Travellers, particularly from the 1960s onwards, and in the relationship between the settled community and the Traveller community. However, even at that there was still a deep embedded divide within society at that time. We can look at the Dáil debates, for example. Under the Local Government Act 1925, power was given to local authorities to remove "tinkers" from the local area because of the health and other nuisances that tinkers were causing to the local community. It was not in the 1960s that this attitude towards our community began. It was there already, embedded into society from the anti-nomadic perception the settled community had. You can also look at that process from the foundation of the State of moving away from the general identity that Irish people were stereotyped with globally. We can look at the words used for Irish people in general - the drunken Irish, the fighting Irish, the backwards, uneducated and dirty Irish. All of these terms that were placed upon Irish people in general, immediately after the foundation of the State, were put onto us as a community. The sense was that, when Ireland was looking at nation building and creating a national identity to be respected, a scapegoat was needed in society so we could say, "We are not them, this is the uneducated, backwards and drunken Irish, not us." The divide begins there.

It is important for us not to focus on saying that things were good, and then looking at why things changed, or why we have this attitude from An Garda Síochána and why the racist perceptions of the settled community or An Garda Síochána are so high. Research has been done and surveys have been taken on public attitudes and from An Garda Síochána. In each survey it is the stereotypes that keep coming back over and over. That keeps us in this vicious cycle.