Travellers’ rights campaigners say they fear the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions not to press charges against writer Brenda Power for incitement to hatred gives the media free reign to publish racist comment.

When journalist Brenda Power claimed in a newspaper article that feuding was the main expression of Traveller culture and that Traveller males are lazy, violent, drunken, and misogynistic, she evoked a response that has not been seen since Mary Ellen Synon attacked the Paralympics in 2000.