Priest urges empathy for Travellers after Carrickmines tragedy

A priest comforting the Connors family who lost five members in the Carrickmines halting site fire has hit out at anti-Traveller prejudice in society and government failures to address the community’s needs.

Fr Dermot Lane, parish priest of Balally in south Dublin, spoke as the remains of Sylvia and Thomas Connors and three of their children, Jim, five; Christie, two, and Mary, five months, were brought to the local Church of the Ascension yesterday evening in advance of their funeral Mass today.

He said while the tragedy had shocked the entire nation, it also raised serious questions about society’s priorities and about the responses, or lack of responses, by successive governments to a variety of reports going back to the mid-1960s.

“These questions touch on a number of very serious issues for all of us. Issues about the provision of adequate sites and housing for the Traveller community, issues about the persistent reality of social inequalities between the Traveller community and the settled community, issues about deeply ingrained cultural prejudices,” he said.

Fr Lane said lessons must be learned from the tragedy. “We must learn, above all, to walk in the shoes of the other if we are to develop genuinely inclusive and pluralistic societies. Many of us in the settled community have failed to walk with empathy in the shoes of our brothers and sisters in the Traveller community,” he said.

He said it would be unhelpful to engage in a blame-game. “Instead, we must move beyond mis-understanding, beyond the standard stereotypes and caricatures.

“If we are to move forward, all must be involved in a new consultation and a new conversation, and that means bringing together local authorities, local communities and the Traveller communities.”

As mourners gathered for the removal service, an announcement was made by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council that it had found a new temporary halting site for the 15 survivors of the blaze, who include Sylvia and Thomas’s orphaned sons, Michael, seven, and badly-injured Tom, four.

The announcement brings to an end more than a week of stalemate between the council and residents of Rockville Drive and Glenamuck Cottages who had blockaded a site adjacent to their homes where the temporary halt was to be located.

The new site is a council-owned car park beside the council depot at Ballyogan which is just 15 minutes walk away from the families’ previous home but is currently used by council staff.

A council spokesperson said: “The new site is not ideal in that it has not got full access to all the basic services unlike the Rockville Drive site but our staff are committed to working round the clock to make it ready for the surviving family members for occupation by the weekend.”

The decision to abandon efforts to secure the Rockville Drive site was taken after it appeared the council would have to get a court injunction against the residents, leading to unacceptable delays for the survivors.

New three-bedroom mobile homes will be located on the site which, unlike the Rockville Drive site, does not currently have water, electricity or sewage facilities. The council said all facilities, and safety features, would be in place by the weekend.