Travellers seek sanctuary after homes are seized

Tuesday July 30, 2002 14:29

by McMean

Last week, more families from Ireland's gypsy-like Traveller community sought sanctuary on the lawn of Bishop Walsh's Episcopalian Residence in Ennis to escape the Guards and the Department of Justice, who have begun 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 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 O3,800
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 a seminar at Trinity College
last week, 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 gardai 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.

TD SLAMS FIRST SEIZURE

Sinn Fein Spokesperson on Equality, Aengus O Snodaigh TD, has
criticised the first seizure of Traveller caravans under the new
law.

The Travellers were forcibly evicted from an encampment on public
property, despite the fact that there is no serviced halting site
available to them in Ennis. Their caravans were seized following
pressure from settled residents.

Speaking in advance of his attendance at the Trinity seminar, O
Snodaigh said the law was discriminatory and he called on the
Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform to rescind it.

"Taken in conjunction with the utter failure to tackle the
Traveller accommodation crisis throughout the state, the only way
to interpret this law is that it makes Traveller culture
illegal," he said. "As such, it violates Travellers' human
rights and equality rights that the government is legally bound
to protect.

"This law targets the symptoms of the Traveller accommodation
crisis, but will not solve it - indeed, it will only aggravate
the situation by confiscating homes. The law also does not serve
settled communities well, as it stands to increase tensions
between the Traveller and settled communities. The first seizure
case in Ennis highlights perfectly the potential problems of this
law.

Mr O Snodaigh said the legislation effectively introduced a
mechanism for the enforcement of settled residents'
anti-Traveller prejudices.

"As such, it undermines recent anti-racist initiatives, and
cannot be allowed to continue," he said.

"I call on Minister McDowell and this government to do the right
thing. Honour the commitment to equality-proof all legislation.
Rescind the anti-Traveller law. Enforce existing trespass and
littering laws when necessary. Accelerate the Traveller
accommodation programme."

He called for a new, comprehensive and serious initiative to
improve cross-community relations, to defuse existing tensions,
and to promote reconciliation between Travellers and settled
communities.