Lest we forget - A moral obligation to the Roma

Since the foundation of the State, this country has been in the relatively stable position of having little or no racial problems, as there was no real immigration.

But it would be foolish not to face the danger of racial tensions following the large influx of people in recent years.

The annual report of the Equality Tribunal indicates that 146 referrals to the tribunal during 2006 were racial-related matters. This amounted to a third of the workload of the tribunal, which found discrimination in about half of those cases.

In the first six months of this year, the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism received 52 complaints about racist incidents. Committee Director Philip Watt warned that increased incidents of racism have become a worry, because racism is the most common complaint in workplace disputes.

While a large majority of the people taking cases are from eastern Europe, this is purely coincidental with the controversy over the Roma gypsies who were camped at the intersection of the M50 and Ballymun for the past number of weeks.

This country cannot solve all the problems of Europe and it would be foolhardy to pretend that we can do so. Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Justice, pointed out that if he does not face up to the Roma problem, he has been warned that thousands of the Roma community will descend on this country.

“They are not interested in working,” he said. “They are not interested in supporting themselves here. It would be absurd to suggest that we should effectively invite them and thousands of their brethren to come to Ireland to be supported by Irish taxpayers.

“They are a huge social problem in Romania,” Mr Lenihan added. “That’s Romania’s problem, not Ireland’s problem.”

His response was much too glib.

The Roma who came here have not been allowed to work in this country, so it may not be fair to say that they are not interested in working. Ronnie Faye — chief executive of the Travellers’ rights group Pavee Point — stated that many of them thought they could get agricultural work here. They came in the hope of finding employment and providing their children with the education being denied to them in Romania.

It should be no surprise that the Roma have sought refuge elsewhere in Europe. Irish people sought economic and political refuge all over the globe, but they went abroad to fend for themselves, and we should be understanding towards people that are attempting to help themselves in the same way.

It may be flattering to think that people would look to us as a Christian country that would be in a position resolve their plight, but we are not equipped for the task.

Our Government should, however, use its authority with both the Romanian government and the European Union as a whole to demand the Roma community be treated with the rights and dignity of full and equal citizens of the European Union.

That is a moral obligation to our own history.