Traveller mortality rate akin to ‘a third-world country’

THE Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has described the findings of a report which shows half of all Irish Travellers die before the age of 40 as something more akin to “a third-world country”.

It was the first major study on mortality rates in the Travelling community in two decades.

The survey revealed almost one-third of all Traveller deaths occur in people aged 24 or less compared to just 2.6% of deaths among the same age group in the general population.