Republican News · Thursday 25 July 2002

Travellers hounded by racist law

"The act is a direct, blatant attack on Traveller culture. It is the criminalisation of Traveller identity." - Traveller spokesperson Martin Collins

On Tuesday, more Travelling families sought sanctuary on the lawn of Bishop Walsh's Episcopalian Residence in Ennis to escape the Guards and the Department of Justice, who last week began to enforce the criminal trespass legislation brought in by the government just prior to the election.

"No one thought they would actually implement this disgraceful law - they thought it was just an election stunt to draw votes on a racist ticket," commented one Traveller. But last week the guards arrested Traveler men and took away their homes, the trailers, and left their families and their children homeless. Some slept in cars. Another family, with nine children, was accommodated in a local community centre. Their trailers are now parked up behind the Garda station, while Ennis enjoys its flower show.

The Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, who has been concerned about the Traveller issue over the past 30 years, is reported as saying that "I do have difficulty with the idea that people are being told to move where there is no place for them to go." He has asked Clare County Council to provide land. "I know they do have land."

The new law, known as the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002, was the subject of a seminar organised by Trinity College Law Centre on Tuesday 23 July. The Act makes it a criminal offence to enter and occupy land (or bring onto or place on it any object) where those actions are likely to cause some specified detrimental effects.

The Act gives powers to the Guards to arrest and charge people committing this offence with trespass, to fine them up to €3,800 and/or send them to jail for one month, and to confiscate their caravans.

Over 1,000 Travellers, according to David Joyce of the Irish Traveller Movement, who spoke at the seminar, are currently camped on public land awaiting accommodation. Many more camp on public land because no transient sites have been provided.

The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act of 1998 stipulated that local authorities had a statutory obligation to provide this accommodation. But local authorities have singularly failed in this. The 1995 Task Force identified the need to provide 3,100 new units of accommodation. Since 1995, only 886 units have been provided.

"The reality of this situation is that there are at least 1,017 Traveller families living in unofficial camps without access to water, toilets or refuse collection, who face eviction and have nowhere to go," said Martin Collins, Human Rights Commissioner and a founding member of Pavee Point Travellers Centre. "They have no legal place to camp.

"The arrest of the four families in Ennis, the movement of a family in Lucan and the forced eviction of a family parked on public land for nearly a year by the gardaí in Cork, only weeks after signing into effect this Act, show how this act will be implemented and the real intentions behind it.

"The act is a direct, blatant attack on Traveller culture. It is the criminalisation of Traveller identity. It is deliberately designed to eradicate the culture of nomadism and to enshrine the property 'rights' of those who have property, over and above the rights of Travellers to have a home and enjoy their nomadic way of life. Worse, the Act protects and even encourages anti-Traveller, racist attitudes amongst local authorities which have failed to implement the legislation requiring them to provide Traveller accommodation within their areas."

"The impact of this Act is reminiscent of how Travellers were treated in the past," said David Joyce. "Over the last 60 years Travellers have faced continuous eviction from camps and recognition of the nomadic identity of Travellers has won little consideration by the state. Far from accommodating nomadism, the issue has been one of how to control it."

It has been the same all over Europe with the persecution of the Roma, the gypsies, the Travellers - a saga of racist abuse which the horrors of the Holocaust allowed people to push under the carpet of modern Europe.

"This law sends a message to Travellers that they are not wanted in Ireland today," said Joyce.

It may be the message of the former housing minister, Bobby Molloy, who introduced the Act, and of the new Minister of Justice, Michael McDowell, who has wasted no time in enforcing it. Will the Irish people stand by and let them make it their message?