Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

A few days ago, two Traveller children, Michael McGinley, aged three, and his brother Joe, aged 22 months, died tragically in a devastating fire in their caravan in Clondalkin. It was a tragedy that shocked and saddened people around the country. I do not wish to speculate on the cause of the fire, although there was a suggestion in The Irish Times yesterday that it may have resulted from families in one part of the site being forced to make amateur connections to the electricity power supply. The tragedy has focused attention on the fact that substantial numbers of Travellers still live in the most appalling conditions on roadsides and unserviced sites throughout the country. In this morning's TheStar newspaper, a reporter wrote about visiting just a few such sites. The report quotes a mother in County Laois as saying "We are living in a site not fit for dogs", adding that shower units are like ice boxes. "You couldn't send a child out to the units to take a shower in that weather", the woman was quoted as saying. The newspaper also reported on other similar examples.

Last January, I visited encampments of landless people in Brazil. The sum total of the facilities were black polythene covered shelters, dirt tracks, cold water taps and communal outdoor toilets. Is it not shameful in the extreme that in one of the richest countries in Europe, families, and especially innocent children, are living in squalor, not far removed from that of the poorest people on earth? Last Sunday, the Taoiseach said he believed that State agencies could play a more proactive role in supporting Travellers to develop skills and access employment.

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