Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:extends its sincere condolences and sympathy to the Lynch, Gilbert and Connors families on the tragic loss of their loved ones in the Carrickmines fire and offers solidarity and support to the wider Traveller community;

recognises that Travellers experience endemic racism and discrimination in Irish society and suffer disproportionately in all the key social indicators including employment, poverty, health, infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy, education and accommodation;

acknowledges that many in the Travelling community are forced to endure intolerable substandard living conditions which have resulted in many Travellers being denied access to basic facilities such as sanitation, water and electricity;

further acknowledges that appallingly poor accommodation conditions have greatly contributed to widespread health problems and appalling premature death rates amongst the Travelling community;

recognises that a root cause of many of these problems is the widespread levels of prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion experienced by Travellers at institutional and other levels of Irish society and that the State has failed in its responsibility to treat Irish Travellers as full and equal citizens;

condemns the successive Government budget cuts to Traveller Programmes that have decreased funding for Travellers from €35 million in 2010 to €4.3 million in 2015, and in particular the erosion from €70 million in 2000 to €4.3 million in 2015 to the Traveller accommodation budget;

agrees that in the aftermath of the Carrickmines tragedy there is an urgent need for a farreaching and fundamental reappraisal of the way in which Travellers are treated in Irish society and that this will require a momentous shift in individual and community attitudes which can only happen with political leadership at Government level;

calls on the Taoiseach to make a statement to Dáil Éireann confirming that the State recognises the ethnicity of the Travelling community; and

calls on the Government to:

— implement the recommendations of the April 2014 Report by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality on the Recognition of Traveller Ethnicity before the end of this Dáil term;

— establish an all-Ireland forum involving Travellers and the settled community, including representatives of all political parties, central Government, local authorities, health and education sectors and representatives of media organisations, to be tasked with:

— reviewing the way Travellers are treated in society and by institutions of the

State;

— putting forward policies that will ensure the State fully honours its responsibilities to the international conventions on human rights and truly values and protects our Traveller communities; and

— implementing the new positive duty (Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission [IRHEC] Act 2014) obliging public bodies to have regard, in the performance of their functions, to the need to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity and treatment;

— enact a series of measures to address the housing crisis affecting Travellers that will include:

— reform of all existing legislation that penalises Traveller culture and ways of life;

— amending the Planning and Development Act 2000 to make the Traveller Accommodation Programme a mandatory consideration on an application for planning permission;

— empowering the National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee to take charge of the provision of Traveller accommodation, with an annual budget and targets and with a commitment to closer monitoring and mid-term reviews;

— frontloading funding to local authorities with a good track record of delivering Traveller accommodation and enacting legislation that will penalise local authorities that refuse to build needed Traveller accommodation; and

— incorporating local development plan zoning objectives with provisions of the Traveller Accommodation Programme (especially in relation to the use of temporary or transient halting sites).

I find it extraordinary that we are having this debate about whether the ethnicity of Travellers should be recognised. I cannot imagine us having this debate about any other minority in the country. I cannot figure out why we have to have this debate. It probably goes back to the foundation of the State. It is ironic that as we approach 2016 the State always seems to have had a problem with diversity.

To be Irish was to be white, settled and a Catholic who conformed to the norms in which the majority of society believed and people did not digress from that path. Perhaps one could pinpoint partition as a catalyst for the scenario in which the country was split along religious, if not political and ethnic, lines. Following partition, everyone south of the Border was to conform to a certain expectation and problems arose when some did not conform. That is exemplified in the State's refusal to recognise Traveller ethnicity and effectively to see them as a problem for the State. This is a situation that simply cannot be allowed to continue.

A report by the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality found that all the identifiable, potential excuses or concerns that could be deployed by the State which continued the denial of Traveller ethnicity should be rejected. There have been many of these during the years under successive Governments. The rejection of Traveller ethnicity has been accepted in the Six Counties and an overwhelming body of research supports Traveller ethnicity, yet the Government amendment, although it is a counter-motion, rather than an amendment, states, "the question of formal recognition of Travellers as a group in Irish society with a unique culture, heritage and ethnic identity is being considered". My God, how pathetic is that? After all the years, all the research and all the information we have, the Government states "it is being considered". Do we need another 50 years of worsening conditions for the Traveller community for a Government here to make its mind up?

What we are doing is not just about rights for a minority. What we are doing is providing leadership, while the Government, in its so-called amendment, its counter-motion, is pulling back that leadership. To state it needs more consideration is cowardly. It is not leadership but an act of cowardice. Granting ethnic rights to Travellers would lead to major improvements in the lives of members of the Traveller community. I always say good legislation is legislation that makes it easier for people to do the right thing and makes it damn hard for them to do the wrong thing. It is legislation which has respect from every citizen of the State. Travellers do not enjoy respect and there is no other group in society to whom the Government or the people would say, "Until 100% of you are behaving 100% of the time we will not show respect to any of you." That is what the Government amendment is all about. We are pandering to prejudice. We are not dealing with the problems but pandering to prejudice, which is why the Government is seeking more time. Is there leadership? It is leading us back to where we were 100 years ago.

The local authorities in their role in housing Travellers have been disgraceful. I was not aware until the recent tragic incident in which a family was virtually wiped out that local authorities had sent back money that had been granted to them by the Government to house Travellers. That is disgraceful and no Government should have tolerated it. All the local authorities are doing is reflecting the inertia of the Government. They are putting it off for another day, another year, another decade or another century, to deal with it then but not now because it might damage them politically.

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