Thursday, January 10, 2008

Priest slams ‘informal apartheid’ towards travellers

Prominent sociologist and temperance campaigner Fr Micheal MacGreil has claimed that the Irish travelling community is in a situation of ‘informal apartheid’.

Speaking at a seminar in Castlebar, Fr Mac Greil said attitudes to travellers showed a degree of intolerance which made it difficult for local authorities to implement integration policies based on equality, and the State at national level may have to step in to defend travellers against public opinion.

He said he hoped that when travellers are treated adequately, their conditions would improve and this in turn would change attitudes.

The equitable treatment of travellers should, Fr Mac Greil claimed, “reverse the negative vicious circle of antagonistic attitudes leading to cynical behaviour, resulting in deprived conditions”.

“When conditions for travellers are improved, the attitudes of the settled people will become positive and this will, in turn, lead to supportive behaviour and further improve the conditions for travellers” he predicted.

Fr MacGreil, a former sociology professor in Maynooth, called for the establishment of a new Commission to review statutory and voluntary policies and aim at a “pluralist integration” of travellers with the rest of society.

He said there should be a “concerted effort on behalf of the State and the voluntary organisations to support travellers in their efforts to put an end to the culture of poverty in which many Travelling families have been trapped”.

And he said there should be “institutional duplication” such as separate schools to preserve travellers’ cultural traits and hand on the “traveller tradition” to the young.

Fr MacGreil also called for improvements in the media portrayal of travellers to “place more emphasis on positive traits and achievements”.

He said the “current negative stereotyping of travellers is largely due to continuous reporting and commentary on negative behaviour of a minority of travellers”.

Within the Travelling community, the young should be made aware of the norms of settled people and urged to respect those norms. The young of the settled community should also be made familiar with the culture of Travellers and encouraged to respect it. A greater degree of mutual understanding between Travellers and settled people is urgently required.

“The current overall situation of this minority is very serious and calls for urgent attention at national and local level” he declared.

“The arrival of non-Irish minorities to live in Ireland also deserves attention and the necessary support, but this is not a reason for us to neglect our indigenous minority”.
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