Uneasy reflection - Migrant issue needs perspective

Despite their high visibility, the Roma community is one of the smaller migrant groups in Ireland.

The controversy over those who were camped on the M50 roundabout attracted enormous attention, largely because of mutual misunderstanding.

Most Irish people do not understand or empathise with the ways of the Roma gypsies, and the latter don’t understand Irish ways.

Many of the Roma people do not have any formal education, and the recent census is little help in determining their numbers. They are a distinct ethnic rather than nationalistic group, who come from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia.

Even the Roma have difficulty understanding the ways of some of their own people. Some are brought up to steal, while others frown of theft and resort to begging as an honest way of life.

“It’s an honest job,” one Roma woman explained. “I don’t steal. I don’t force people to give me money if they don’t want to.”

The Roma strongly disapprove of pre-marital sex with the result that the girls are married off as early teenagers, usually at what Irish people consider a criminally young age. As a result they tend to have very large families.

Their lifestyle makes most Irish people uneasy. Some Irish pity them because of the vulnerability, while others lambast them as welfare tourists.

In a sense they are an uncomfortable reflection of our own people during the penal days of a couple of centuries ago.