Belated first steps: Irish Government finally moves on ethnic recognition of Travellers
28 November 2016
Recognition of Traveller ethnicity is long overdue and must be followed by robust action to combat all forms of direct and indirect anti-Traveller racism. Action is needed to solve the acute accommodation crisis facing many Travellers. Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights calls for enforcement mechanisms to hold local authorities to account, better targeted policies, and enhanced Traveller consultation and participation to ensure the “basic human rights and the dignity of members of the Traveller community.”
Photo credit: Sam Boal/Rolling News.ie
Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny made a statement on Wednesday, 23 November, that he supports recognition of Traveller ethnicity and that the Government will move on this in January. This is a long overdue vindication of more than 30 years campaigning by Traveller activists, for recognition holds out the possibility that the Irish state might bring an end to its history of denial and refusal to accord Travellers the basic respect that is their due.
In response to this news, Martin Collins, Director of Pavee Point said, “Finally our community will have the recognition we deserve. No longer will Travellers be looked upon as settled people gone wrong. We will have our rightful place in Irish society.” The Irish Traveller Movement also welcomed the move as a “vital first step to working towards ending anti-Traveller racism, ending inequalities and building an inclusive, intercultural Ireland.”
De-ethnicisation and decades of denial
Recognition needs to take stock of the sufferings inflicted on generations of Travellers by assimilationist policies, and confront the basic fact, as President Michael D. Higgins put it, “that discrimination and prejudice against Travellers and Roma is racism and it must be named as racism and tackled as racism.” Recognition of Traveller ethnicity must be followed through with robust action against ethnic discrimination in every place that denies equal treatment and dignity to Travellers.
If we rule out a sudden Wednesday afternoon epiphany, it is worth asking what prompted this move from the Taoiseach now, after decades of different governments’ ambivalence, hostility, and willful inertia on this issue. Calls over the years by UN bodies and various Council of Europe committees to recognize Traveller ethnicity were routinely rebuffed or just went completely unheeded.
Typical of the stance over the years was the government’s reporting to CERD in 2004 that “Travellers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin,” and that they “do not appear to fall within the definition of racial discrimination”. As Robbie McVeigh put it, this summary de-ethnicisation was made without any supporting evidence, and on the basis of this reasoning, the government included discussion of discrimination against Travellers only in an appendix to its report.
Pavee Point described the relegation of Irish Travellers to the appendix of Ireland’s CERD Report as providing “a telling metaphor of the marginalised position of Irish Travellers in public policy in particular and Irish society in general.” They insisted back then in 2004, that while ethnic recognition is not a panacea, it could “contribute to less contradictory and more consistent policy responses and would send out an important signal about the status of Travellers in Irish society.” Twelve years later it seems the government has finally declared its intent to send out that important signal.
Growing momentum: national campaigning, international scrutiny
What’s clear is that over recent months, effective national campaigning directly led to renewed and mounting international pressure, creating a momentum that finally prompted this long-overdue shift. This pressure culminated in the visit to Ireland by Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, who issued a report on his trip just two days after the Taoiseach’s announcement on Friday 25 November. Commissioner Muižnieks welcomed the signals that ethnic recognition was finally on the way, but stressed the need for recognition to be combined with targeted policy measures and more effective consultation with Travellers to address the inequalities and discrimination faced by the community. He witnessed the conditions on two Traveller sites and said described the “the level of need and destitution was striking”, and identified one of the biggest obstacles as the failure of local authorities to spend money: “Local authorities should be held to account. It is clear providing money alone has not worked, that you need some kind of an enforcement mechanism.”
It would seem that the fear of international opprobrium finally brought an end to the government’s dithering and delaying on the issue of recognition. This dithering was epitomised just last June by the Minister of State for Equality, when he spoke of the need to “win the hearts and minds of the settled community” before Traveller ethnicity can be recognised. This was offensive in its implicit suggestion that recognition would be bestowed upon Travellers only when the settled community consents. Considering the depth of anti-Traveller prejudice, the idea that first Traveller organisations must engage in the “really challenging area of work” to inform and educate “Irish society in general” before ethnic recognition was yet another clumsy attempt to put off and postpone the day.
On 5 October, a resolution adopted by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on ERRC vs. Ireland confirmed the Irish Government’s violations of Article 16 on five grounds covering insufficient provision of accommodation for Travellers, inadequate conditions of many Traveller sites, and inadequate safeguards for Travellers faced with eviction.
The government’s responses amounted to a typical exercise in equivocation, denial and deflection. The Committee’s concerns about the increase in the number of families sharing overcrowded accommodation, were met with this response: “While Ireland accepts that the number of families sharing accommodation has been increasing in recent years, in many cases this is because families choose to live together, as such communal extended living arrangements are a feature of Traveller family life and culture.” As to the report and resolution that unanimously found violations of Article 16 on five grounds, the government stated, “On a final note, the ECSR report illustrates Ireland’s commitment and ongoing efforts to provide appropriate and high quality Traveller-specific accommodation.”
But, it seems that this kind of bluster doesn’t fool anyone anymore. On 15 October, Kitty Holland reported in the Irish Times that the European Commission had begun an investigation into possible breaches of the Race Equality Directive (RED). Salla Saastamoinen, equality director from the Commission’s directorate-general for Justice stated that even though the State does not recognise Travellers as an ethnic minority, they come within the scope of the directive. Noting that Travellers are “the most marginalised community in Ireland,” she stated that “It appears local authorities often fail to provide adequate accommodation for Travellers under the Housing Act 1998, while transient sites are needed to enable nomadic Travellers to move.” Ms. Saastamoinen stated that the Commission’s concerns about anti-Traveller discrimination by local authorities, are demonstrated by the Carrickmines tragedy and the Dundalk evictions.
Accommodation crisis and forced evictions
On the first anniversary of the Carrickmines tragedy, Martin Collins drew attention to the crisis in accommodation “We still have 1,300 Traveller families – approximately 7,000 people who are living in sub-standard, unsafe accommodation right across this country … If you look at the narrative around the national housing crisis, it’s predominantly spoken about in relation to settled people and Travellers have become almost invisible. But it’s Travellers who are living without access to water, electricity and sewage facilities.”
A national fire safety audit by the National Directorate of Fire and Emergency Management, found 62 per cent of Traveller accommodation had unsafe electrical connections; 81 per cent did not have working smoke alarms; 57 per cent of units were placed too close to others; 86 per cent didn’t have fire-blankets and 31 per cent of sites had inadequate access for emergency vehicles.
At the beginning of 2016, Nils Muižnieks, called for a halt to forced evictions of Roma and Travellers across Europe, drawing attention to the human cost of such actions. In June six international organisations also called for a ban on Traveller evictions and highlighted the human cost of evictions: “A constant threat of eviction can result in physical and psychological health problems, such as emotional trauma, as well as lasting social isolation affecting particularly those with vulnerabilities, such as older people, women or those with disabilities … “
As the year draws to a close, it is clear that in many countries these calls went unheeded as forced evictions continued apace, achieving nothing but multiplying misery and deepening exclusion across the continent. As for evictions of Travellers in Ireland, Martin Collins stated: “This is getting us nowhere and is just causing torment and hardship. People find a place where they can stop and get set up. Then, out of the blue 48-hour eviction notices are served. Travellers feel like they are being persecuted for simply trying to survive.”
Beyond recognition
The visit of Commissioner Muižnieks has served notice that recognition alone will not suffice. Recalling the Carrickmines tragedy, he drew attention to the government’s violations of Article 16 and the need for urgent action to address the “insufficient provision of Traveller-specific accommodation, inadequate conditions of many Traveller sites and inadequate safeguards against forced evictions.” He described recognition as having the potential to mark a new departure, but he was emphatic that much more needs to be done to ensure the “basic human rights and the dignity of members of the Traveller community.”
International scrutiny of Ireland’s rights violations and breaches of RED should not be deflected by the government’s announcement of its intent to move on recognition of Traveller ethnicity. But recognition is a hugely important first step. As Bernard Joyce, director of the Irish Traveller Movement explained, Travellers experienced discrimination “several times a day”. From a young age many felt a sense of “shame” about their identity which was internalised, contributing to high levels of depression, ill-health, low educational attainment, unemployment rates of up to 80 per cent and a suicide rate six times that of the settled community. “Recognition would be a start in restoring a sense of dignity.” Let it not be a false start, for too much time has been lost already, and too much suffering has been endured.
