Senator Mary Robinson's motion under Standing Order 29: I would ask the House and the Senator to make sure the Minister gets 20 minutes or thereabouts to reply.
Motion under Standing Order 29: Tallaght (Dublin) Itinerant Problem.
Yes. I am very grateful for this opportunity to debate this most urgent social problem and to draw attention to the high risk of injury or even death to members of travelling families in the Tallaght area. I am glad the Minister for Defence is present for the debate. I note he has come in because the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of State are absent from the country because of our Presidency of the Council of Ministers. I have to comment at this time and with the urgency of the problem one might question perhaps the priorities of the two Ministers in that Department, but I am grateful to the Minister for his presence and to the Cathaoirleach and the Seanad for allowing this debate to take place.
I felt it necessary to put forward this motion as an urgent and an emergency motion and to raise it in this way because what has been for some considerable time an urgent situation is now becoming more critical, particularly with the proposal for a mass march or rally on Saturday. I will be referring to other possible incidents which could put at very serious risk either individual families, vulnerable children, or the community members in Tallaght. This is a matter of great concern to this House and one which warrants the adjournment of our other business to consider it.
Of course, this problem did not spring up overnight. The elements of it have been festering for years. We must in all honesty admit that a large share of the blame for the recent events which have so heightened the tension must be borne by politicians at both local and national levels. Instead of dealing with the problem and having the courage and commitment to ensure that a full-scale and balanced programme of settlement of travellers got under way, we have seen politicians run for cover or support the establishment of halting sites anywhere else but in their own electoral areas. There are honourable exceptions. There are some politicians who have taken a very courageous stand notwithstanding the cost to them in their own electoral areas but, by and large, we cannot be proud of our record in this area.
I want to deal first with the absolute urgency of the problem—it is an urgency which has prompted the tabling of this motion—and then trace the background and what has led to the kind of incidents and tension which we have seen in the past few weeks and, finally, put forward some proposals which might help to defuse the tension, reduce the bitterness and allow the acceptance of travellers and create respect for their culture and their way of life.
I now turn to the present situation in the Tallaght area. It is a situation which we are all aware of from reading the national newspapers, looking at television in recent weeks, reading comments in editorial columns and so on. I want to refer to my own experience of travelling around the Tallaght area for a number of hours last night and looking at the situation first hand. I was appalled at what I saw and I was extremely concerned about the urgency of the situation and about the tension, which was almost tangibly in the air, and the expression of it by residents whom I met.
The first thing that strikes anyone driving around the Tallaght area or the people who live in Tallaght is the barricades, the barrels and watches which have sprung up at the entrances to estates. Five roads have either been completely blocked off or blocked off in such a manner that you can only enter or leave if you are allowed to do so by the people who are manning the barricades. What is evident there is a breakdown of the rule of law and that power and command have been taken over by self-appointed residents in the various estates. This is so serious that it is important for us in this House to reflect on it. We are seeing the blocking off of public roads, residents who cannot enter or leave their estate unless permitted to do so by those who are manning the barricades and we are seeing certain people being prevented from moving in or out of the estate. That is happening with a great deal of tension and a great deal of rumour, fear and apprehension which heighten the tension.
That is a very serious issue because if gardaí locally, either of their own initiative or under instruction not to interfere in the matter, allow illegal activity of this kind to continue and appear to be quasilegal, then it will be very difficult at a later stage to try to redress the situation. It is a very serious challenge to the norms of our society, to our very democracy, that there can be an assertion of local power, the illegal establishment of barricades of this kind, done it would appear, to some extent certainly, without objection from and to some extent with apparent approval by some of the local representatives. That is a very worrying aspect to which I would like to draw attention.
A second immediate problem in the area is on the Tallaght by-pass itself. As Senators will be aware, part of the section of the by-pass which had been closed and which could not be opened because there was families of travellers parked on the by-pass — that gave rise to recent court proceedings — was opened recently by the moving of certain families off the by-pass entirely into fields nearby and by approximately 30 other families moving to the side of the roadway. I looked at the area again last night and I was shocked to see how dangerous the situation is. It is a dual-carriageway with traffic travelling very rapidly, and on one long section of it there are approximately 30 caravans, some with very small children in them. They are barely on the side of the road. The possibility of real risk and potential loss of life or limb to young children is very grave indeed. It is not a situation that can be tolerated. It is one which we should take urgent stock of.
The third matter which was very much in the front of my mind in looking for urgent consideration of this was the proposal mentioned to me by a number of residents last night for the holding of a mass march or rally in Tallaght on Saturday. This was mentioned to me by a number of different residents in different estates. They were not clear in their minds precisely where the rally would go to. It is to be a major mass march or rally in the Tallaght area. There is great fear about what the result of that kind of activity would be and whether it might give rise to certain incidents. There is talk about a counter rally of a smaller number of residents who are dismayed and alarmed by recent developments, who want to stand out for the right of travellers and who want to join with the travellers in solidarity. There is a very great risk of extreme tension, possibly leading to violence, from these incidents.
I want to turn briefly to the background to these events. As I have already said, the problem did not grow up overnight. There is a great deal of confusion, lack of information, and apprehension, both about the number, about where they came from and the number there are in the Tallaght area. Even last night a number of residents referred to the fact that a considerable number of them are traders, who are very wealthy, who are living on tax-free bonuses, that they have no status or special need for consideration by the community. But the reality is different. It is a reality that was very well summarised in an article in this week's Sunday Tribune by Emily O'Reilly in which she referred to studies that have taken place of families in the by-pass area. She wrote, and I quote from a passage in her article:
The reality is very different. A picture of poverty and neglect. According to the County Council, of the 120 families who lived on the by-pass no more than 15 were traders. The rest live on social welfare and begging. A survey carried out last March showed that out of 300 travelling children in Tallaght of school-going age, only 93 or 31 per cent were enrolled in schools. Of those, 56 had to be bussed to schools outside the Tallaght area. Only two non-housed itinerants attended local schools.
In March 1983 a survey on the health of the travellers showed that 45 children belonging to the 83 families then on the by-pass were in hospitals around Dublin, most of them suffering from either gastro enteritis, chest infection or "failure to thrive". Another survey carried out in Dublin's north side revealed that every traveller child in the first year of its life would be admitted to hospital on three occasions. The infant mortality rate of travelling children is three times that of the rest of the population.
Whereas undoubtedly there is a percentage of traders among the travelling community, there are also families with urgent housing and family needs and with grave under access to education of their children. It is horrific that in Ireland in 1984, 31 per cent of children of a particular group in an area would be the percentage who would be attending any form of schooling and the rest would be denied access to literacy, to what we take for granted in modern Ireland. There is a very real social and human dimension to what we are talking about.
It is important to emphasise what came out in evidence in the recent by-pass case: a significant number of the families are Tallaght families, not by any means all of them, but a significant number have been Tallaght families for generations, who indeed could be called the first Tallaght residents because they were there when Tallaght was a green area before the housing estates were built. But what has happened — and I am only summarising it — is that because there has been this urban spread and development out from the city into the county area, particularly to Clondalkin and Tallaght, the travellers have been pushed further and further out to the perimeter. There is no doubt that a large number of travellers were moved from the Dublin city area. In 1979 there were 170 families living on the city perimeter. Now there are only 20 families. They have been moved out and they are part of the increased number who are in Tallaght. Undoubtedly there was also some movement of families from the North or back from England during the seventies.
But by and large what the travellers have found is that the traditional halting sites, the side of the road sites, have been removed from them by having trenches dug or large boulders put in to prevent them parking there. They have been squeezed until they found that one of the few areas where they could remain, because there were large tracts of local authority land, were the areas of Tallaght and Clondalkin. That is why in that haphazard and unplanned way they have mainly congregated in that area. It is fair to say, and is true, that the settled communities of Tallaght and Clondalkin have had to bear too great a share of the social problems which surround this whole question.
It is understandable that they would have a sense of both grievance and of isolation in relation to their problems, but the neglect has now led to something much more serious than that. The nearest I have seen to racism in Ireland in my life is now beginning to emerge in the Tallaght area in relation to travellers. It is not a question of not wanting a halting site here or there — it is not wanting travellers at all in the area. It is hard to distinguish that from what we would characterise as racism in other countries. The problem is an extremely serious and urgent one.
I should refer briefly to the legal position. Following the McDonald case judgment of the Supreme Court in July 1980 it became clear that local authorities, and specifically Dublin County Council, could not move families who had ascertained housing needs, who had nowhere else to go and clearly had housing needs from local authority, without making some effort to meet those needs by some offer of alternative accommodation or an alternative site, and therefore it became more difficult to take the easy way out and move travelling families.
Notwithstanding that, Dublin County Council did not rise to the political challenge and responsibility and ensure that they brought on stream the necessary programme of halting sites. Therefore, the residents in areas where there were larger numbers of travellers, particularly in Tallaght and Clondalkin, had become increasingly frustrated and bitter at the way in which they pay the price for political inactivity and for political cowardice in not being prepared to take the necessary action. We have seen this in the last couple of years in Tallaght, boiling up to the present crisis. In 1982 there was evidence of frustration on the part of the people in Tallaght who decided at that time, led by the Tallaght Action Group, to take matters into their own hands, to have a march on to the by-pass and to inform the families there that they would have to go or they would be moved. That was defused at the time and it never came to the kind of confrontation that we are seeing at the moment. The warning was there once again for politicians but that warning still was not properly taken or appreciated.
Now a new body has emerged, the Tallaght New Town Action Group, which has constituted itself as a populist movement in Tallaght which appears to be very widely supported in the estates. Certainly the message that I got was not to underestimate the extent of the support for this action group and the extent to which it is felt by residents on the ground that all else has failed, that the political process had completely failed to meet their problem and that there is an unwillingness at both central and local government levels to take on the necessary responsibility and to show equity in the matter, and to do it fairly, to have an even spread of halting sites throughout the greater Dublin county area and into the neighbouring counties. Parts of Tallaght are only a couple of miles from County Wicklow and it should not be confined artificially to the area of greater Dublin county and it should be more evenly spread throughout Dublin city and county and not be bearing down so intolerably on communities such as Tallaght and Clondalkin which have many of those social problems — they already have a great absence of the supports and community centre youth group activities which would help them to cope with their particular problems and with the very young population and very high unemployment they have.
So what have we seen in very recent times? Dublin County Council procrastinated for an appalling length of time on taking a decision on the programme of halting sites which had been put before them and which had been before them with some amendments for a number of years. On 10 April last the county council adopted proposals to establish 12 halting sites throughout the county, and three of these would have been in the Tallaght area. It appears now that even that programme is in cold storage because of the very sharp reaction there has been to the actual sites identified in the Tallaght area.
I now come to the part of my contribution in which I want to suggest some proposals for action. It appears at this stage that it is not a problem that can be left purely to the local authority, Dublin County Council. It is one which has to be coped with now by a combination of local and general government. It cannot be confined in a narrow way to the borders of County Dublin, and therefore it involves the necessity for planning which includes the central Government.
I believe funding has never been the real problem. Money is there all right; it is political will and political courage that are needed. The funding would be there for the proposals, and that has been shown. At this stage it is extremely important that a planned programme of halting sites and group houses be brought on stream. It would be a grave mistake to try to focus on just one halting site or, as has been proposed, to attempt to have a very large halting site to meet part of the problem. To have a halting site of 40 families is unacceptable. It could not work from the point of view of the whole culture of the travellers themselves; their fears of living together in a large group of that kind make it simply something that would not work. In fact it would retard the acceptance of halting sites for travellers, because it would be a battleground and source of great enmity as between the travellers in a very large halting site of that kind and local residents in the area, and they would be able to point to the fact that it was not acceptable.
So the halting site to be proposed must be small and well planned. We have all the information we need. We have had all the reports and all the committees we need. The report of the Government task force was presented to the Government in February 1983. They have it for nearly a year and a half, giving them a very detailed assessment of the housing needs, the predictions of needs both for the greater Dublin area and for elsewhere in the country. The numbers involved are not that substantial. In fact the numbers of families to be housed either in houses or in halting sites would be possible to accommodate if there was a will to do it. It is extremely important that the halting sites or group housing schemes be small. Basically, they should try to accommodate the extended families of travellers, three to five families. They should be very well spread throughout the area so that there would be fairness as between communities, so that communities in other parts of the greater Dublin area also would adjust to and absorb and, we hope, welcome either group housing or halting sites for travellers in their areas with travelling children being integrated in the schools and so on.
Another approach that I think is urgently needed is that the quality of the housing must be of very high standard, both group housing and halting sites. One of the associations of residents with halting sites is that they are human tips and they quickly become centres of appalling pollution. Some of the resistance to the location of halting sites is precisely because they are seen to be rubbish tips for human beings which will depreciate the whole of the amenities of an area. Now that we have waited so long and moved so slowly I think that we must move with equality and with care and attention and in close consultation both with travellers and with the very significant number of people who work professionally and in a voluntary capacity with travellers. The problem is very well known and very well understood by these people. They must be enlisted to help us to cope very urgently.
The reason I sought to raise this matter is because of my own conviction that it is one of the most urgent social problems facing us. It is Tallaght today, it is almost Clondalkin now and may be Clondalkin tomorrow. It is a problem that is of the utmost urgency and requires the greatest patience, skill, commitment and, above all, courage at both national and local level to cope with it.
The issue of one of our largest cultural minorities and the problem of our inability as a society to adapt to their cultural needs is one that normally I would talk about in very emotive terms, but at this stage the issue has become too serious to allow any of us to be too free with the sort of words we would use. I would like to reiterate that I am not talking about the problem of the travellers: I am talking about the problem of Irish society that is not able to adapt itself to the culture of a small minority.
There is a convention that the appropriate response, as the Minister in a memorable phrase described it, or the expression, as a liberal would say, on an issue like this is that one would be carefully balanced about it. There are two sides to problems, but what Father Travers said needs to be repeated here, and that is that by comparison with the problems of the settled community in the area where the travellers are experiencing so many difficulties, the travellers have suffered far more, and if choices have to be made, then, as Father Travers said, the choice must be to support those who have least. Senator Robinson has fairly effectively scotched the myth of the wealthy travellers living in luxury who are unwilling or unable or unprepared to pay their share of support or sustenance to society.
It is of fundamental necessity that the scale of the oppression of travellers in Irish society should be fairly well recorded. Oppression is not something that one can entirely measure by objective criteria. What is important is that we see how travellers perceive their own oppression, because it is only from the perception of people of their oppression that one can build a proper response.
The first thing we must always remember is that travellers are not individuals who happen to live in unfortunate conditions: they are a culture, with their own values and in some cases with their own language and their own traditions and pride. Any accommodation must recognise all of that. Among the traditions that the travelling community claim and defend, and claim to be entitled to maintain, is the right to move and the right to stop. Like all rights for any group or any individual, that is not an absolute right. Neither do we as a society have any right to decide that it is a right that can be dismissed out of hand and say that what we want to do is to persuade all travellers to settle and then the problem will be solved. The problem is not a problem of travelling people but of Irish society unable to adapt to a cultural minority with its own needs.
One should list the range of deprivations from which travelling communities suffer, ranging through accommodation into inadequate income and the perceived hostility of many people within the State welfare services on the income support side to travelling people as travelling people see it, on to the inadequacy of a health service which is based on the assumption that people stay in one place to respond to the needs of people who choose to travel. The horrific fact needs to be reiterated again of the extent of illness among the children of travelling people and the horrific fact of the infant mortality rate, which is three times the national average. Far more travellers die young and from accidents and other matters than do in the settled community. The average life expectation of the travelling community is considerably less. There is the extraordinary irony of travelling families being moved on because they are alleged to be a health hazard, and the process of their being moved on does fundamental damage often to their health, particularly of pregnant women and small children.
We could also talk about the travellers and the inadequacy of the education system to respond to and sustain their culture and to support their perceived values as a culture in our society. One would have to mention the travelling community's perception of the law. One would be avoiding a fundamental issue if one did not mention the apparent extraordinary uneveness of the administration or the enforcement of the law in Tallaght and the surrounding areas in recent weeks, where barricades reminiscent of no-go areas in Northern Ireland were apparently being tolerated indefinitely and the blockading of roads have been tolerated indefinitely without any apparent action by the Garda. On the other hand, apparently a traveller does no more than take off his coat and he is charged promptly with a breach of the peace. People who have complained about this obstruction of the law and this breach of the law have been ignored by the Garda. Other people in large numbers have been allowed to obstruct traffic and to take the law into their hands. One cannot help wondering how you can have respect for law among all sectors of society if the noise and the numbers of a group determine the extent of the response of the law enforcement agencies to their breaches of the law. One has to address oneself to whether those who are given the duty to enforce the law have the sensitivity or perceptiveness required to deal with such a problem. I will quote from a Garda superintendent who was interviewed on an RTE "Today Tonight" programme on the travelling people. He stated:
The itinerants are a fairly big problem and are pretty difficult to deal with because they are very mobile. A lot of them have similar names. They look very much alike, a lot of them, because they are related family-wise and so on. In the cities, particularly, the crime is committed by the juvenile element mostly. The adults have a tendency to move out the country into the rural areas in remote places and commit very serious crimes, particularly on old people living alone and so on. All the counties of Leinster are affected and they have gone as far as Galway and Clare, and they can do all this in one day, be gone in the morning and be back at night.
If that had been said by a member of the RUC about a section of the Catholic population in Northern Ireland, every political party in this State would have risen up in outrage. It is impossible for anybody to believe that travelling people could every believe that they have the support and the sustenance of the law if that represents the view of the senior Garda officer responsible for the area in which this problem now presents itself. For me it is even more difficult. For various reasons I will refrain from publicly commenting on that because I thought it was a very serious matter. I engaged in correspondence with the Garda Commissioner. His final letter to me simply said that the Garda Commissioner did not have an opportunity to see the programme and therefore could not comment on what the superintendent in question had said. That does not reassure me about the capability or, even worse, willingness of the Garda to enforce the law impartially.
One could pursue all the other areas — the lack of political rights, the extraordinary decisions that were taken in the case of Mrs. Nan Joyce when she was arrested and charged with very serious offiences; half the offences were withdrawn on the first adjournment and on the second adjournment the remainder of the offences were withdrawn. Many of the travelling community have said over and over again that the Criminal Justice Bill is nothing new because matters have been operated like that for years anyway in their perception of the law. As many of us here have often said it is on the capacity of this country to operate under the rule of law, it is on that capacity that our civilisation is based and our ability to work with each other is based. Therefore there can be no exception and everybody must have an equal perception of their own equality before the law.
There are many other issues to be discussed. Senator Robinson has given a quite restrained and balanced set of proposals on how to deal with the problem. But first it must be said that in the short-term those who are most in danger and those who are most threatened and most vulnerable must be the first concern of the State. Quite clearly the children of the travelling community living on a dual carriageway with no place to go, and those communities who are threatened by outbreaks of local hostility, must be the first concern of the State. Their protection, their safety and their security must be the first concern of the State. Their protection, their safety and their security must be the first issue, and then we can begin to develop a proper programme for proper sites and facilities for our travelling community. There can be no other basis for that long-term progress than the defence of the most vulnerable, who clearly are our travelling community.
I will quote one very eminent individual who gave his analysis of how this problem could be solved:
The settlement problem would not be solved either by trying to create large ghetto-type settlements or by putting individual travelling families in a community in isolation without moral support and people to whom they could relate. There needed to be a number of travellers together and yet not so many as to appear a threat to the settled community.
The same speaker went on to say, and this is of fundamental importance:
What was now needed was not more research but resources, political commitments and the application of Ministerial skills.
That statement was made by the Taoiseach on 14 October 1983. I enthusiastically endorse that statement and hope that the Government's proposals to deal with the travelling community and our inability to cope with their culture will reflect that commitment by the Taoiseach.
In conclusion, I hope that we will have a fairly clear assurance here that no Member of the Oireachtas would condone the widespread flouting of the law of this land that has occurred in Tallaght in recent weeks. I hope we all recognise that the basic principle of the law is that we are all, whether we like each other or not, supposed to be equal before the law. Therefore, I would urge the Government in the short-term to ensure that adequate resources and adequate commitment are available to ensure that those who are most vulnerable in our society are not threatened by prejudice, fear or indeed downright racist bigotry and that in the long term what the Taoiseach described as the resources and the political skills will be applied to this problem so that those who are among the most vulnerable in our society can at last live in some sort of peace and harmony with those of us in the community who find it so difficult to adopt to their needs.
This is indeed a very sensitive matter, and one has to be careful, as some previous speakers have said.
First of all, I would like to reply to Senator Ryan who it might seem obviously directed some of his remarks to me when he said that he would hope that no Member of the Oireachtas would condone the flouting of the law in the last few weeks in Tallaght. I want to assure Senator Ryan and anyone else who wishes to listen that I have never condoned the flouting of the law in Tallaght or anywhere else. I do not condone but I am afraid that some of his words here today have condoned the flouting of the law in Tallaght over the last few years. I am sorry that he is not fully briefed as to the situation. However, I will deal with that later if time permits me. There are some more important matters at this stage to be put on the record of this House, because the impression has been given by the mover of the motion, Senator Robinson, that politicians and public representatives have run away or hidden from this problem. I want to put on the record of this House the programme which has been embarked upon by the local authorities in the Dublin area over the last few years, and indeed if it can be matched by any other local authority in the country then I will be willing and ready to recognise the efforts of other local authorities.
Dublin city and county have co-operated in this problem for six or seven years. We have a joint committee dealing with the travelling people and over the last five years there have been settled in the city and county 210 units of chalets or bungalows on settled sites. Six further sites in the county are in course of construction and six further sites in the city. That brings it to a total of 222. In standard housing, Dublin Corporation have housed 93 families and the county council have housed 123 in four years. The corporation figure might date back a year or two further. That gives a total of 226 housed in the Dublin area, city and county. Tallaght, which was a small town ten years ago, has now risen because of development to a size greater than four times the size of Limerick city. One can imagine all the difficulties and problems which this has brought on a settled community who were settling in to building their own units and sections of the town and trying to knit themselves into a community, coping with enormous problems with little or no Government assistance for most of those years of building up. In Tallaght alone, a new town in a small part of County Dublin, the local authority has housed 40 of these travelling people in standard housing. Did Senator Ryan or Senator Mary Robinson know that, and, if they did, why did they not say it? If they did not know that, they are further from the situation than they claim to be. Dublin Corporation housed in the Tallaght area 25. That is a total of 65 in standard housing. There is a halting site in the centre of Tallaght for five and Dublin County Council are now in the course of erecting a group housing scheme of 12, a total of 82 families being settled in this town of Tallaght, where we are told that politicians and public representatives have run away from the problem. I would ask the proposer of this motion if there is any other town in Ireland which can match that record in providing for the travelling people.
I would now like to deal with the history of this. I would like the House to appreciate that I live in Tallaght and have lived there since 1932, when Tallaght was a small village, so I think I am pretty au fait with what has happened to date. I am afraid what I am going to say will not compare in any way with what Senator Robinson has said here this afternoon. When the town of Tallaght began to develop away back in the late sixties and the early seventies the county council were charged with responsibility for providing for the new expansion and explosion of population in that area. They zoned a considerable amount of land because they were under pressure from industrialists and others, who were ferrying in people from as far away as Navan and Naas for the jobs in the factories at that time. I, along with other public representatives, including the late Seán Dunne, a member of the Labour Party, attended more than one meeting of industrialists in Tallaght who were urging us to do this very thing, which we did. Having zoned the land, Dublin Corporation had an enormous housing problem in the city. They proceeded—as they are entitled to do, as is any other local authority — compulsorily to acquire large tracts of land in County Dublin but particularly in Tallaght. One of these CPO's extended to 1,500 acres in west Tallaght. I knew the farmers and landowners who were caught in that CPO. It is the land which now houses the large Dublin Corporation estates of Fettercairn, Brookfield, Jobstown, Killinarden, Knockmore and the county council area of Kilclone.
It was in 1971 that Dublin Corporation first purchased some of these large tracts of land. From that day to the day the machines moved in — even to today — not one acre of that land was ever let to a contractor or farmer to bring some return to the national Exchequer or to bring some contribution to the national effort. It was allowed to lie barren. If Senator Robinson suggests politicians are running away from the situation then she has to look at her own local authority because it was nothing short of a scandal that a local authority in Ireland during those difficult years could hold on to large tracts of land with no income to that local authority; the lands were allowed to lie barren for travelling people to move into. I paid four visits to the City Hall during that time. I implored successive city managers to find some method whereby they could let the land more quickly before it would be taken over by people coming into the area to get the easy pickings.
I had a letter from the city manager which I would have brought here to put on the records of the House if I had known this motion was coming up, saying that in an attempt to let the land they were unsuccessful because it went to auction and there were no bidders. Why? There were no bidders because Dublin Corporation insisted that this land be let through an auctioneer who is named by the corporation, that it be advertised and that a public auction be held. By the time that happened the travelling people had moved in to graze the land, which meant that naturally nobody wanted it and there were not bidders.
During that time and in recent times when all the travelling people were in Tallaght, Dublin County Council acquired 163 acres at Fortunestown in the middle of where the travelling people were congregating at the time. Today we still hold that land, undeveloped; no machine has gone on it to develop it. There is not one itinerant caravan or travelling person's home on it nor is there one travelling person's horse or goat or hen on it. Why? Because two days before the county council were given possession of those lands, they got in touch with an auctioneer; they cut all the red tape and asked him to have it let within 48 or 72 hours, which he did. It is bringing a return to the local authority, the Dublin County Council. I do not see why Dublin Corporation could not do the same thing and why they insist on the lands they acquire in the county going through this rigmarole, advertising, going through auctioneers' books, waiting for weeks on end. These travelling people are quickly informed as to where local authorities acquire land and they move in.
It is a problem that has to be faced at national level. Until it is, it cannot be solved and it will not be resolved. There are people living in squalor in the centre of Tallaght and they have been doing so for three and four years now. I moved among them and I found families who had been allocated houses, one in Limerick, another in Tipperary. There were others who left standard housing allocated to them by a local authority. When I inquired from them as to why they had left good standard housing and had come to live in what I termed squalid conditions they told me simply that the pickings were good. They had free grazing for their horses. That same day I counted 93 horses grazing free of charge on the southern side of the Tallaght by-pass. On the northern side there were far more. I saw machines moving into the site where Knockmore estate is now and the hay was being harvested there on a Friday and it was gone on Tuesday. When I phoned the corporation on Tuesday they did not even know about it. I would lay the blame at the doors of Dublin Corporation for the way in which they have handled their land purchases in County Dublin.
I do not condone the breaking of the law in any sense. I do not condone the blocking of the roads that took place some time ago; I do not condone the holding up of anyone who wants to travel the roads, but we must have a certain sympathy for the people who are living in these estates, who have purchased their homes, who have seen the law flouted for the last four or five years by people who have been trading in the centre of Tallaght and who had the refuse — 600 cars — removed last July and August from that site. I am sure many of you saw the aerial photograph last week or the week before in the Irish Independent of a site that was cleared last August of 600 car wrecks by the local authority, at our expense. Can you imagine the frustration of traders in the area, who are now even being refused admission to the tipheads at Bohernabreena to dispose of their refuse? They are paying rates and taxes and they see their neighbours trading without paying rates or taxes and having their refuse removed at the expense of the small traders in the area. There is no expense whatever to the travelling people, who are reaping all the benefits.
Of course there is discrimination in Tallaght and there has been discrimination in Tallaght over the last four or five years, but it is in favour of the travelling people. I live with it; I live right on their doorsteps. I have lived there from the word "go" and I failed to find among them any Tallaght families, as has been stated by Senator Robinson. I would like her to name those who claim to be old Tallaght residents, because I was with the travelling people when Tallaght was a town of 1,000 people. Today it is a town of 80,000 people, and I have been living with it ever since. Surely we must have some sympathy with the people who are not blockading the roads, but are holding watches at the entrances to their estates. Why? Because many of them might feel like moving too. Can they move where they like? Try to sell a house in Tallaght today. Put an advertisement in the paper and put your telephone number on it for the sale of a house in Tallaght and see the answers you will get. Nobody wants to buy a house in Tallaght today because of the terrible conditions that exist in the centre of Tallaght.
Of course I agree that there is danger to life and limb, to have people in 29 caravans on the Tallaght by-pass today, living alongside the dual carriageway, but it is no worse than the Naas Road; it is no worse than what I saw in Cork last week; it is no worse that what I saw in Galway a month ago where they were living on the side of a busy road. So why the fuss about Tallaght where they have Garda protection 24 hours a day, which the others do not have in Galway? I did not see any gardaí protecting the children or reducing the speed of the traffic. Every step has been taken to ensure that injustice was not done to the travelling people in Tallaght, and I refute any allegation that suggests otherwise.
The Garda have been kind to the travelling people, because I have had innumerable complaints — and I can see it myself — of new cars, and they are not minis and they are not Morris Minors — appearing untaxed on the Tallaght by-pass for the last four years. I do not know if they are insured but they are certainly untaxed and parked illegally. Has any one of the travelling people in Tallaght been charged with an untaxed car or with illegal parking? The gardaí have been exceedingly kind and generous. One garda told me of a case where there was a charge and when he went to serve the summons — I forget the name but let us say it was Tony McMahon to use my own name — and when he approached the site he asked for this Tony McMahon. A man said "Yes, that is me". The garda produced the summons and then the man said "Oh, that is not me, that is my cousin. He has moved to Limerick". So they flout the law. That garda knew that was the man he wanted, that he was the man he should have served the summons on, but his hands were tied because there are many of the same name. You saw on the newspaper the other day that there were charges arising out of the activities last week and there were two people of the same name charged with only three or four years difference in age, 32 and 35 or something like that. The Garda position is impossible, as I have been telling many people who have said to me: "Why are they not charged with crimes that if I committed I would be in the District Court or in some instances in the High Court, but they are getting away with it?" There is discrimination in Tallaght. There has been discrimination in Tallaght over four years, but I am afraid it is in favour of the travelling people.
No politician in County Dublin and no public representative — I speak for all shades and all parties — has run away from this situation. But it has become impossible to handle because successive Governments have been unwilling to tackle the problem. The present Government set up a committee of Ministers who reported over a year ago. We have seen no action since. I hope there is something coming from the Cabinet in the immediate future to have this matter dealt with at national level. The local authority now find themselves unable to deal with the situation. They tried to open the road on 26 October last when there were 23 caravans on the by-pass. Today the road is open with 29 caravans on it but there were 23 on it on the day the council had the road ready for opening. The council kindly informed these people that they were going to open the road and would be obliged if they moved off it. What happened? We had some people who were supposed to be protecting the travelling people and looking after their welfare, who organised an application to the courts for an injunction to prevent that £4½ million roadway being opened so as to have easy flowing traffic for last Christmas. They were successful in their application to the courts. But this same committee ensured that the 23 caravans increased in number to 80 overnight. If those people are supposed to be helping the travelling people, then I am getting the wrong end of the stick.
That is contrary to the evidence given in court. I do not have a right of reply but I do object to a distortion of a factual position being put on the record.
Senator McMahon is recalling subjective impressions and he has produced them as facts. I would not bother interrupting him but I want to put on the record that he has concocted a lot of nonsense. He has used emotional terms and he has done no service to this House.
No interruptions, please.
I can tell you that some of those people, and I am sorry to say some Members of the Oireachtas, are less than helpful in resolving this very delicate situation.
Do not be inviting interruptions.
It has not been easy for any public representative in County Dublin to cope with this problem over the last few years because we have been battered from both ends, out in the field with the voters and those who were choosing to come to live in Tallaght. There are not many people choosing to come to live in it today; they will not until this problem is resolved. Surely Senator Robinson does not want the town of Tallaght to accommodate a further 130 travelling people? Where would the balance be if that were to happen? It would be far more helpful if some of the people who are supposed to be helping the travelling people realised that they too, the travelling people, have a responsibility: today they are living in squalid conditions in the centre of Tallaght, a danger to themselves and to the settled population.
Three days ago I was on the site at Newtown, where those who chose to remain on the by-pass are living. I pass that site two and three times a day. I stopped my car and walked, and I found such appalling conditions that the travelling people must realise they are endangering their own lives. Their health and lives are in danger not from the traffic but from the pollution and stench in that area. The settled population moved because they could see that neither central Government nor local government were making any headway in relieving the terrible conditions that existed in the centre of Tallaght.
I appeal to Senator Robinson, who seems to be in daily touch with these people to tell them of their responsibility. They ask where they can move to, but they can move far easier than the settled population. Many of them could return to the counties they came from, even if it was only for a short while until we got the problem settled. I believe a word from Senator Robinson would resolve the matter in Tallaght overnight, if she was willing to say it.
It sounds like repatriating the immigrants in France.
I am refraining from saying many things because of the delicate situation we find ourselves in, but a plea was made for people who live in poverty in the centre of Tallaght. I have outlined the steps taken by the local authority and the success we had in housing the numbers I have already put on the record. I have to live with the situation. No taxes and no rates are being paid by these traders, some of whom have now purchased the best house ever built in Tallaght for £84,000. If I purchased that house, what kind of a letter would I get from the Revenue Commissioners? I am not free to move in that way. Two acres of land were sold in the hill area three and a half miles from the centre of Tallaght and purchased by one of these traders for £8,000 and six acres were sold the week before last for £32,500. A house was also purchased in Clondalkin — we saw it in the papers; it got a bit of publicity when the caravans moved in. Another house was bought in Tallaght for £72,000. All of these were bought by traders from the Tallaght by-pass.
There may be poverty there — we housed one of the poorest families on the by-pass in a chalet — but they are never let starve, and I hope we never see the day when they will be let starve. Seldom do they have to call on the agencies the settled community have to call on. There is less poverty among the travelling people on the Tallaght by-pass than there is among the settled community in the various housing estates in Tallaght.
I appeal to Senator Brendan Ryan, if he has any contact with them, and to Senator Robinson, to have a serious chat with the people who are not Members of this House but who are listening to me now, and to impress upon them the responsibility they have, not to act as they did previously when they broke down bollards in the early hours of the morning and persuaded travelling people to move to a site they knew would create a flashpoint, because that is what they wanted. I appeal to all these people — they may discuss this subject with me if they wish but they never have done so, and I am willing to discuss it with them — to tone down a situation that might escalate even further into a very serious situation. That is my last appeal here today. I hope Senator Robinson will discuss this matter with me and if there is any aspect of which she is unsure or any information she has been fed and cannot be sure is reliable ——
It would be very hard to find common ground.
——I ask her to come and talk to one who has lived with this problem since it began.
We agreed that the Minister would have 20 minutes.
I will give five minutes to Senator Fitzsimons.
I thank the Minister for giving me this time. This is a very sensitive, serious and urgent matter. There is not very much I can say to help the situation, but I hope I do not say anything that would aggravate it because I am very concerned about this problem, as all Members are. I agree that this problem did not develop overnight; it has been there for quite a few years and it has been getting bigger. In the old days travellers camped on the side of the road outside a farmer's field. They used his field and after a few days a garda came on his bicycle and asked them to move, and they moved. The situation has reached a most sophisticated stage now. The travellers know their rights and they do not move easily.
I would not agree with Senator Robinson that politicians must bear total responsibility for this problem, or that they always run for cover. There are more influential people in society than politicians. I am not sure that politicians can solve this problem on their own at this stage. Society must play its very important part. I am in total sympathy with the travellers, particularly those with young children. It seems strange that today we passed a Bill dealing with the protection of animals kept for farming purposes. In section 3 of that Bill there is a clause which gives the Minister power to make regulations covering provisions with respect to the dimensions and layout of housing for such animals, the materials to be used in construction any such housing and the facilities by way of lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, regulating the level of humidity, air circulation, drainage, water supply or otherwise to be provided in connection with any such housing. We appear to have our priorities upside down when we pass a Bill protecting animals while we have travellers living in bad caravans or in tents made of flimsy canvas or sacking. The comparison seems out of keeping in an allegedly Christian country.
We must have some kind of balance. I have the greatest concern for the people who bought sites and houses and who live in Tallaght because they feel they have to go out at night to man the barricades. We have all come up against these problems. In my own area some time back, not far from the town a farmer living on a back road had this problem with travellers who camped outside his house. They used his field; then made a toilet of his garden; and they made it clear they they were not going to move. I had every sympathy for him. Many of the people who plead so eloquently and rightly for the travellers might have a more balanced view if they were in the position of that gentleman.
I know there are many wealthy travellers. They have expensive caravans and cars. I agree that not all of them come into this category, but to some extent it does influence society. Senator Robinson said that many of those people depend on social welfare and begging, but it has been pointed out in the media that there is no need for begging in Dublin. We have all come across a little girl begging on the footpath. We could afford to throw her 10p or 20p and we would not miss it but we are told there is no need or advantage in that and that it is wrong because we are encouraging begging. For Christians who regard the Mystical Body as the important element in Christianity it is very difficult to see in these people the person of Our Lord or to know what to do.
I believe the only solution is to have permanent settlement for these people. That is most urgent. Society would readily absorb all these people, with many benefits to society. It would not be one-sided. In the old days the travellers and tinkers were craftsmen of the highest order. They made items for houses and they made and decorated their caravans. It is tragic to see those skills lost. There is only one way we can overcome that problem, and that is to settle those people in the community where they could bring up their children in a proper manner. I have always felt that if a man or a woman want to live by travelling, lying in ditches or under trees, that is their right, but I do not think they should have the right to bring up children in those conditions. Society should make it possible for them to be housed, to send their children to school and to use their talents to the utmost. A planned programme by the Government and local authorities is necessary to achieve this.
There are other matters I would like to talk about but I have not got time.
May I remind the Senator that he has taken nine minutes of the Minister's time.
Meath County Council have done work for the travelling people that is second to none, including the local authority mentioned by Senator McMahon. We in Meath are rightly proud of this. The travellers who have been housed are playing their part in the community and their children are being integrated and I have no doubt that the people of Meath will benefit from this work. I want to thank the Minister again for allowing me those few minutes.
First of all, I would like to apologise for the absence of the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of State at his Department. They are both abroad on EEC business on different matters. One could have got the impression from something Senator Robinson said — I am sure unwittingly — that if their priorities were right they would have been here. I take the spirit of what the Senator says but, of course, the motion we are debating was ordered today at lunchtime, whereas the Minister for the Environment went abroad at the beginning of the week and the Minister of State went abroad this evening. They did not know this matter was to be debated. In fact, the House postponed the Road Traffic Bill because of their absence and this was notified to the House yesterday. I say that in fairness to the two absent Ministers lest the record might be misunderstood.
I accept that.
The motion we are debating is quite specific in its terms. Inevitably and understandably the debate has developed into general consideration of the problem of travelling people. Before considering some of the general aspects I would like to deal with the specifics in the motion. The motion is concerned about the legal position arising from the present situation in Tallaght and more particularly in relation to the by-pass road. I would like to assure Senator Robinson and other Members of the House that the Government would be very concerned to ensure that the rule of law is maintained in that area and is enforced with the ultimate objective of ensuring that no harm comes to anybody. This is the first priority.
The motion refers to the risk from traffic because of the continued presence of travellers on the side of the by-pass. There is a Garda patrol in that area each day between 10 a.m. and 2 a.m. the following day. The objectives of that patrol are to ensure that people are safe and that no harm will ensue and that as a consequence of the presence of the gardaí no breaches of the law will be committed and no breaches of the peace will take place.
Furthermore, with regard to the rally planned for Saturday, the Garda are sensitive to the implications of that rally. They have been in touch with the organisers in advance to ensure that the rally will be peaceful and that it will be an orderly demonstration. There is a constitutional right of assembly and free demonstration which has to be acknowledged and facilitated, but it also has to be peaceful and orderly. I have every confidence that the good advice available from the gardaí will be accepted by the residents of the area and that it will not be their objective to have anything other than an orderly rally. I express a strong wish that that is how matters will turn out.
The enforcement of the rule of law is essential for the continued survival of our democracy and its importance cannot be over-emphasised. The rule of law has underlying it the requirement that there is a consensus on the part of the population to accept it and obey it. Sometimes that consensus comes close to breaking and then a serious dilemma arises for the State with regard to enforcement of the rule of law having regard to the fragility of the underlying consensus at a particular time. In that situation one has to rely on the discretion and good sense of those charged with the enforcement of the law. We have to leave it to their tactical judgment as to how the law should be enforced. There are various methods which can be employed by the police as to how they should go about discharging their duty, ranging from what one might call a heavy handed approach to a softly, softly approach. But in the ultimate the main thing we must be concerned with is that the rule of law does not break down and that it gets enforced. We have to rely on the tactical discretion and good sense of those we have charged with enforcing the rule of law to see that that happens. It is a very difficult situation for the police in the Tallaght area. So far as I can perceive it as an outsider with no intimate knowledge, I think the matter is being handled with discretion, and the proof of that is that there has been a minimum of violence in that area.
It was interesting to hear differing perspectives on the problem as represented by the view of Senator Robinson, and to some extent by Senator Ryan, and the view of Senator McMahon. Senator McMahon resides in the area and has been imtimately familiar with the problem as it originated and developed. Senator Robinson is obviously closely involved in the problem and brings a detailed knowledge to it. I do not propose to make a value judgment as between the two points of view, but what I say is that each point of view has its own kernel of validity. In saying that, I think I highlight the dilemma that faces society in grappling with and solving this immensely difficult problem. At the kernel of that problem there are two contradictory things to be achieved — integration faced at the same time with resistance. This essential dilemma has been experienced by communities and local authorities all over the country in grappling with the problem of settling travelling people and it is present to an unusually large extent in Tallaght. The problem has become emotive in recent days because of developments.
Essentially it is for the settled community to accept the settlement of travellers within their midst. To get to that stage there has to be either central or local government involvement in arranging the mechanics of the settlement. The implementation of those arrangements has caused some difficulty in the last decade or so when the problem first began to be seriously looked at. While there have been difficulties, there has been progress — it was interesting to hear the progress that has been made in the Tallaght district, and the figures which Senator McMahon quoted were of themselves not insignificant and could be described as impressive and a tribute to the community. In fairness to the community who might at the moment be the subject of blame for reacting the other way and to preserve the balance, that should be said.
One thousand five hundred and eighty families have been accommodated in the last decade in housing chalets or halting sites. In 1983 for the first time in years the number of families on the roadside has reduced. I hope that is the beginning of a continuing and consistent reduction in the problem. In the hope that this will continue and in order to give momentum to this downward trend, the Government, having received the report of the Travelling People Review Body, set up a task force of Ministers with the following terms of reference:
(a) to ensure the urgent consideration by the relevant Departments and public authorities of the recommendation in the report of the Travelling People Review Body,
(b) to identify and implement those recommendations in the report which are capable of implementation in the current financial situation, and
(c) to examine the question of whether responsibility for selection of serviced sites should be determined at national level.
If Senators reflect on those terms of reference they will see how important they are and how critical the successful implementation of them will be to the final solution of this problem. The ministerial task force will be reporting to Government within the next few days and it will then be for Government to make decisions.
We have been hearing that for years.
The Senator has not been listening to what I said.
I have been listening.
A review body made the proposals. Those proposals have to be implemented. They have been examined by a task force on behalf of the Government with a view to implementing them. The task force have completed their work and will be making specific proposals on how the review body's recommendations can be implemented.
The point I was making is that it appears that it has been before the Cabinet for the last while.
I am sorry, that is a misapprehension. The review body's proposals came before Government and were referred to the ministerial task force for the nuts and bolts of their implementation. We expect to be presented with the details of those nuts and bolts in the next few days. We will then hopefully make decisions which can be the start of the final solution to the problem of settling travelling people. It is an immensely difficult problem. Even with the most sophisticated machinery that could be devised by government there will still be the underlying bottom line criteria — the acceptance by the settled communities of certain numbers of travelling people to be settled within their midst whether in houses or on sites. Until that is successfully grappled with, the problem cannot be successfully concluded.
I hope that the situation in Tallaght will be defused. A contribution towards defusing could be made by all public representatives when they are advocating their particular point of view and it should be done with discretion, always bearing in mind that every problem has two sides. I hope that both the settled community and the travellers in Tallaght will realise for their own sake the importance of the maintenance of the rule of law and will co-operate with the police in ensuring that no breaches of the peace or injury occur. I want to assure the House that the Government are extremely sensitive about the dimensions of this problem and will treat the matter as urgent when is comes before them in the next few days. Again, I can only urge public representatives, where they can exercise influence at local authority level or in community groups, to ensure that their voice will be directed towards getting acceptance of what I believe is the fundamental problem, that is, to get the settled community to agree to a reasonable and appropriate number of travellers being settled in their midst.
The Seanad adjourned at 5 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 July 1984.