Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Jun 1996

Vol. 466 No. 8

Report of Task Force on Travelling Community: Statements (Resumed).

Mr. Deasy

Before the Adjournment I was referring to a question I tabled two years ago relating to the number of travelling families. In round figures there were 1,000 travelling families in 1961, 1,700 in 1974 and 4,000 in 1993. Will the Minister take note of these figures? They are extremely illustrative and tell a tale — that the travelling community is growing at an enormous rate, way in excess of the rate for the settled community.

There is nothing outrageous in stating that there is a need to place more emphasis on education and birth control. Too many people talk out of the side of their mouths on issues such as this. We need to get our facts straight and objectives correct. Many excellent and wonderful people are doing some tremendous work, either on a fixed or voluntary basis, in helping travellers to educate their children whether in regular or special schools. I say "well done".

I am not denigrating travellers when I say that their numbers are creating a problem. I cannot stand dishonesty. Because people are not sufficiently well educated in birth control methods to keep numbers under control the problem will get worse. We must do what is necessary. This is in everybody's interests, both travellers and the settled community. There is no point in shilly-shallying.

As we are all aware, the bulk of the members of the travelling community are good decent people born into misfortunate circumstances. Given this background they are doing an excellent job. In this regard the report does not get down to basics. Halting sites are not the solution to the accommodation problems of the travelling community. The provision of a mixture of halting sites and a certain number of local authority houses will not provide a solution. The straightforward solution is that travellers must be integrated into the community. This might be achieved by housing them in established housing estates or in rural developments comprising one or two houses — a development of four houses might be acceptable, but not a major development. The provision of halting sites is a partial and unsatisfactory way of attempting to solve this problem. I have had firsthand experience of this issue in my locality, as have other Members.

This may not be a popular statement, but the movement of travellers should be regulated. There should be a designated officer or officers in each local authority area to whom travellers must report if they are about to move from one halting site to another. Halting sites are an interim measure and the ultimate measure is the provision of local authority housing. However, travelling families should not be allowed to leave a halting site unless there is a vacancy at the location to which they propose to move. The unregulated movement of travellers, often in large convoys of up to 60 families, creates huge difficulties for towns, villages and rural communities and it cannot continue. There should be a permit or licensing system whereby people should only be allowed to move if accommodation is provided on a licensed site.

I do not know if this point was made during the course of the debate, but much of the aggravation and agitation occurs because a travelling family or an entire group of travelling families arrives on the doorsteps of the settled community. These families have no sanitary or other facilities and do not have access to a location to stable any horses they may own. It is obvious that conflicts will flare up as a result. Regulations must be introduced.

I am annoyed and alarmed at the aspect of wishful thinking in the report. I do not wish to inhibit anyone's rights, be they travellers or members of the settled community, but movement must be regulated and should only occur when spaces become available on serviced sites. This will provide the solution to many of the current problems. Why do these problems exist? Why do councillors and members of the public make irrational and inflammatory statements? It is because of the agitation, confrontation and conflict that occurs.

Illegal parking should not be permitted. In this context, I asked the Minister for the Environment about the powers of local authorities, health boards and the Garda Síochána. He informed me that local authorities have ample powers to move people who have parked illegally. That is not the case. I openly contradict the Minister for the Environment and challenge him to state otherwise. I have contacted senior officials of the local authorities in my area who inform me his statement is a joke. They do not have any powers to move these people on and cannot prevent them parking illegally. Sometimes they spend weeks and months trying to coax such people to move on. It is completely unacceptable that up to 50 travelling families can camp in front of a private house or housing estate.

Movement should only be permitted when people are travelling to a site under the control of a local authority. We should not tolerate any illegal parking, or any movement which does not result in travellers arriving at a place with proper facilities. I ask the Minister to take this point on board.

The ultimate aim should be to house every travelling family as halting sites are an unsatisfactory intermediate measure. It is unacceptable that travellers are permitted to enter overcrowded halting sites and cause problems and they are allowed to park outside private houses. That is the essence of my contribution.

Controls, advice and housing are all necessary. Halting sites are not the answer. Illegal parking causes many problems between travellers and the settled community. The entire system must be regulated and cannot continue in its present form. The Report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community does not address the existing problems in the correct manner, it does not advocate a solution and continues to support a system which is not working.

Minister for Equality and Law Reform (Mr. Taylor)

This has been an interesting, informative and valuable debate and I thank Deputies for their contributions. Historically, discussions relating to the interaction between the traveller and settled communities frequently assume a bitter and antagonistic note. Myth masquerades as fact and people and communities often adopt polarised positions. Seeds of bitterness are sown which are very difficult to eradicate. On the whole, this debate was different in that there was, to a large extent, and absence of rancour among Deputies and candour was displayed on all sides of the House.

There was a reasonable consensus on the significance of the report for mapping out a strategy which would, in time, prove effective for removing the sense of exclusion and of disadvantage which travellers experience. There was also consensus on the need for a response from government, at central and local level, and society in general to the report and on the need to support the Government's five year strategy produced and put in this report, notwithstanding the high cost factors involved. This positive response encourages me to believe a new era of better relations between the settled community and travellers to which I referred in my opening statement is now realisable. We have commenced the process of laying firm foundations for the removal of the root causes of the problems which the traveller and settled communities experience.

The honest and forthright nature of comment and analysis by the task force, and the clarity with which it presented them in the report, in no small measure contributed to the consensus among Deputies. However, I sound a note of caution. The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Deputy McManus, rightly stressed that the provision of accommodation for travellers, although at the heart of the solution to these problems, will not of itself resolve the issues concerning travellers and their relationships with the settled community. She said: "Providing accommodation is not the end of the story when it comes to true equality between our communities, but without accommodation the story cannot begin". People must be open to a change of attitude and be prepared to work patiently and continuously over many years to create an environment which will lead to harmonious relations between the communities.

The provision of housing for travellers, the creation of educational opportunities for traveller children and the improvement of the health care facilities available to travellers, all of which are encompassed by the Government strategy, are essential ingredients to the process. These programmes can be brought to a successful conclusion within a time-scale and with legislative measures, such as those I referred to in my opening statement, which relate to housing, employment and discrimination. Work on the improvement of relationships between the settled and traveller communities and on the creation of a climate of greater inclusiveness and tolerance among people generally will have to continue long after these administrative and legislative programmes have been completed. In their contributions to the debate, many Deputies echoed in some form or another the caution expressed by the Minister of State, Deputy McManus.

Many Deputies spoke at length on the importance of education to the position of travellers in preparing them for participation in society and the environment prevailing at the end of the 20th century. As Deputy O'Rourke rightly pointed out, the section of the report which deals with education is by far the longest. That is evidence, if evidence were needed, of the central role education must play in achieving this objective.

In my opening statement I alluded to the initiatives my colleague, the Minister for Education, is taking in response to the report. Some Deputies — Deputy Martin in particular — appeared to have serious reservations about their adequacy and Deputy Martin illustrated his statement with specific instances of apparent deficiencies. I appreciate and am heartened by the concern shown by the Deputy and I welcome this opportunity to provide clarification on some of these issues.

The vocational education training opportunities scheme, generally referred to as VTOS, is designed to help long-term unemployed persons avail of educational opportunities such as taking the junior certificate, leaving certificate, City and Guilds courses and so on. They continue to get an allowance equivalent to their social welfare payments while on the courses. Five thousand places were available in 1994 and in 1995. In 1995 the Minister for Education announced a cut of 1,000 in the number of places available for 1996. She subsequently reversed that decision, however, and restored the number of VTOS places on offer to 5,000.

I understand that while the Minister for Education does not propose to establish a traveller education unit in her Department, it is her intention to establish an internal committee comprised of representatives from all the areas in that Department dealing with travellers, including the inspectorate and the national education officer for travellers. This committee will regularly meet traveller representatives.

In relation to pre-school education, the Department of Education has been involved for many years in the provision of pre-school education for traveller children. The early start scheme, a pilot scheme for pre-schools in disadvantaged areas, has been in existence for the past two years. That scheme is very well resourced both in terms of staffing— one teacher and one child care assistant for each group of 15 children — and funding. A traveller child living in proximity to a school where an early start class has been established has as much right to be enrolled as any child from the settled community.

In relation to school attendance, a task force on truancy was established by the Minister for Education in 1995 and is expected to report to her in the near future. We are all aware that education is dear to the heart of most parents and in this regard traveller parents are not any different from other parents.

Deputy Browne had some words of criticism for the Department of Health and the health boards. I refer him to the Government response to that section of the report which refers to traveller health. The Government is committed to strengthening health services for travellers. In April 1994, the Minister for Health launched a health strategy which, inter alia, addressed the particular health needs of the travelling community.

A consultative process is taking place in the Department of Health and with the health boards in relation to the recommendations of the task force. It is proposed to consult the relevant organisations representing travellers in this process, the end process of which will be a draft policy document specifically on traveller health. As I said in my opening statement, the Minister for Health sees the proposed policy document as providing a blueprint for action by the health boards and other service providers.

The concern expressed by a number of Deputies for traveller women and the particular difficulties with which they must contend will be addressed in the policy document on travellers' health which is promised in the health strategy.

With regard to the forthcoming equal status legislation, I assure the House, and Deputy Keogh in particular, that there is not any lessening in the level of Government commitment to this legislation. It has particular significance for travellers, and the absence of statutory rights in areas such as education, the provision of goods and services and the disposal of property is a significant factor in the level of social exclusion they experience.

As I said, the Equal Status Bill is currently being drafted and I hope to publish it later this year. It is unfortunate that a number of years ago the Government, of which Deputy Keogh's party was a member, voted down a Private Members' equal status Bill which I introduced in 1990.

I set out the strategy to which the Government agreed to give effect to the recommendations of the task force. The Government did this only after careful consideration and analysis of the report had been carried out by a committee of experts, representing the various Government Departments, which will be required to implement that strategy and to oversee the various action programmes involved in its implementation. Naturally, this required time and Deputy Woods chose to represent this passage of time as Government inaction. I cannot agree. The welfare of travellers and their relationship with the settled community for years to come — perhaps for a period well into the 21st century — is at stake. This is something we cannot treat lightly.

Deputies in their contributions referred to previous attempts to resolve difficulties surrounding the implementation of plans to alleviate the plight of travellers and to attend to related matters. These met with only limited success and in some instances with strong opposition leading on occasion to the plans and initiatives in question being abandoned. This must not be allowed to happen in relation to the task force report. Unlike Deputy Woods I see the period which elapsed between publication of the report and the debate as representing an investment in the process leading to the successful implementation of the Government's strategy.

I agree with Deputy Deasy that the creation of halting sites is not the sole solution to the difficulties being experienced by travellers and the settled community. It is, however, a necessary part of the solution. Many travellers cannot as yet adjust to living within the four walls of a house and to compel them to do so would not be a practical proposal and would serve only to aggravate the situation. The use of serviced and adequately managed halting sites should be seen as a proper and necessary step in the settlement process for travellers, it has regard also to the needs of the settled community.

I take issue with Deputy Deasy and disagree with him when he suggests that the movement of travellers should be controlled. I would remind him that travellers like other people are citizens of this country and their rights are guaranteed by our Constitution and laws. Some travellers are criminals and some members of the settled community are criminals. Whether travellers or members of the settled community they have to be dealt with in accordance with the law. Deputy Deasy talked about contraception and spoke inappropriately in my view about the fact that some traveller families have large numbers of children. That is their lawful right under the Constitution. Many members of the settled community also have large families and that is a matter of choice for them. Education about contraception is rightly dealt with across the board, not particularly for travellers but for all members of the community, travelling and settled. I disassociate myself from the suggestion by Deputy Deasy that the movement of travellers should be controlled and from some of his other suggestions also.

I pay tribute to the members of the task force for their commitment and dedication to the task they undertook and for the excellence of the report. It will be an invaluable source document for administrators, legislators and all concerned citizens for years to come to enable us to build a secure foundation stone for travellers and members of the settled community.