Relationship made toxic by hypocrisy - Travellers in society

THERE is hardly a subject of public discussion or concern in Ireland more alive with hypocrisy than the prickly debate around Travellers’ rights and Travellers’ place in our communities. 

Even the never-ending culture war around our policy of outsourcing abortion seems honest in comparison.

Advocacy groups chide us, saying we do not do enough to support a group that asserts what it describes as its unique culture, by demanding that it remain outside but be supported by this society, a group that wishes to remain nomadic but demands respect from a society whose social disciplines, values and aspirations it rejects and often challenges.

Advocacy groups insist that Travellers be provided with accommodation, welfare support, and education but the great majority of settled communities would do all in their power to prevent a halting site being established in their neighbourhood. That may not be the world as seen through the prism of support groups or the values of Christianity but it is the undeniable reality of Ireland in 2016.

Unfortunately, there are many good reasons — let’s not call them misconceptions — for that negative response. It is even more unfortunate that it is not always even possible to say so. The debate has become more a dance of innuendo and pretence than an honest discussion between groups with objectives more often than not in conflict. Pavlovian offence takes the place of robust discourse. Tragically, these evasions make a solution even more remote. Travellers remain at a huge disadvantage, disadvantage perpetuated and amplified by an active sense by some of victimhood and entitlement underlined by disinterest in conforming or even recognising the mores of the society expected to offer ongoing supports.

Just yesterday, the European Committee of Social Rights found that local authorities do not provide enough accommodation for Travellers and that many halting sites are in a poor condition. Many halting sites are in a pitiful, unacceptable condition but that raises a question — how did those sites become so dilapidated? What condition were they in when they were handed over to the residents?

Yesterday’s report is just one of hundreds criticising this society’s record on how Travellers are treated. It is unfortunate that these reports seem shaped by a perspective that puts at least as much emphasis on rights as on responsibilities. The apathy of some Travellers to the transformative potential of education is never considered. Though generalisations are always wrong and unhelpful, criminality is a factor, even if in a minority of cases, too. The fear inspired in rural communities by Traveller raiding parties — yes, there are others as well — also sustains the negative view of Travellers.

This is a rich country and nobody, especially children, should have to suffer the consequences of intransigence or neglect but unless some hard-nosed honesty and expectations are introduced to this debate Travellers will continue to face a life of hardship on the margins of a society weary of the hypocrisy cloaking ineffectual social policies.