I interrupt to say that we came to a decision. Before the statements, which we ruled on earlier, commence, I should like to remind Senators that certain aspects of the Darndale situation are before the courts and are therefore, sub judice. I request Senators making statements to bear that in mind. Under the Order of the House, each Senator offering has ten minutes only. In case there is a misunderstanding, the House agreed to give this time for the statements, not the Cathaoirleach.
Darndale (Dublin) Disorder: Statements.
I should like to thank the House for allowing this matter of importance to be discussed and to thank Senator Manning for raising the issue this morning. It is important that we use the debate to put this whole issue in perspective. The sensationalism is not helpful and we must appeal for calmness and reason. That is the best way forward. I would like to outline to the House the history of this problem.
The illegal parking of caravans along the Darndale link road has been a problem for many years now, maybe 15 years. This situation is totally intolerable from all points of view, from the point of view of the travellers, the settled community and the industrialists living adjacent to the road. It is important to use this debate to ensure that this problem which has been going on for many years now is tackled.
Dublin Corporation have been very active on this issue. Indeed, they held a number of meetings to discuss the issue and to bring all the parties together. I would like to pay tribute to Dublin Corporation for their work on resettling the travelling community in the city. They do great work and it is probably not recognised. They have undertaken to organise a number of painstaking negotiations regarding this issue with all the parties involved. Now, after many years, there is a plan to erect two halting sites in this area, which is agreeable to all the parties concerned. However, we are waiting for final approval from the Department of the Environment to give the go ahead to this plan. That is the solution to the problem which has arisen over the past two days in particular. If these two halting sites are provided — small family halting sites — that road can be cleared and landscaped to the benefit of all the people of the area.
It is important to comment on the community of Darndale. They are sick of the bad publicity the estate has got over the past number of years and the recent publicity has not helped. Darndale is a community of 1,000 families approximately. It is always the small minority who get an estate a bad name which is the case on this occasion also. You cannot brand 1,000 families with a particular tag when only a small minority are responsible for the trouble. There is a very active community spirit in the Darndale area and a very active tenants' association who have been particularly helpful in bringing about a solution to the problem of homelessness in the locality. There is also a scheme going ahead at the moment for the refurbishment of Darndale, due to be put in place some time later this year. There is a tremendous community spirit and the people have brought about great improvements in their living standards. The recent publicity will do a terrible amount of damage. It is important in this debate to say that Darndale is an active, thriving, healthy community and that only a small minority are responsible for the trouble.
I had the pleasure recently of opening a scheme of 12 chalets for travellers in this locality and I witnessed a tremendous amount of goodwill in the community towards the travelling people. This is one of the areas of Dublin where travellers and the settled community have a very good relationship. That is something which must be pointed out. Unlike many other parts of the country, there is close co-operation between travellers and the settled community. I hope that recent incidents will not damage this good relationship.
The problem of travellers in this country is a major challenge and we owe it to ourselves and to everybody concerned to tackle it. It is one in which I am particularly interested as I represent the Darndale area on Dublin City Council. I appeal for calm. The solution to the problem is the provision of the two halting sites proposed by Dublin Corporation, after long painstaking negotiations, as quickly as possible. We must communicate that decision to the Minister for the Environment.
A Chathaoirligh, I was responsible for the misunderstanding regarding the statements so I am glad you put the record straight. I am also very pleased that the Leader of the House saw fit to agree to having time made available for this brief discussion today. I would like to follow in the spirit and tone set by Senator Haughey who adopted a very calm, responsible approach to a problem which concerns him, myself and anybody who has the honour to represent that area at local or national level.
As is by now well known to most people, Darndale was conceived as a model housing estate about 12 or 13 years ago. It was based upon an award winning design which had been implemented with some success in parts of Britain and the Continent. Unfortunately, the award winning design was not a success in Darndale, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it was the wrong concept; certainly the range of support services were not available. The people in Darndale found that the bus service was not adequate. They were living a long distance from the shops and a range of problems developed. In addition, one could perhaps say that the question of maintenance over the years and the policies followed there were not particularly successful. One way or the other, Darndale was beset with a great number of social problems, problems of maintaining the housing stock and, most of all, in maintaining the morale of the estate. These problems were tackled in a number of ways but usually in a piecemeal fashion.
I should have said that Darndale suffered greatly over the past number of years from the implementation of the £5,000 scheme which allowed council tenants to give up their homes and get £5,000 if they were buying private houses. In a great number of cases this scheme was highly successful, but it had a disastrous effect in Darndale. A very settled community, beginning to find its own way, suddenly found itself depleted of some of the most constructive people living in the area. There were a huge number of vacant houses and a huge throughput of people, many of whom stayed only a short while in Darndale. To a certain extent, Darndale was used as a convenient dumping ground for a number of problem families. In a short space of time much of the character of Darndale changed and the job of the extraordinarily good community workers and community leaders who were trying to develop Darndale became much more difficult. It is within this context over the past two or three years that the last Government — after a visit by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Garret FitzGerald, to Darndale — took the decision that Darndale needed to be fundamentally redesigned. It was no good repairing broken houses or simply patching up a fabric that was showing great signs of wear and tear. In effect it was necessary to redesign the entire estate in accordance with the wishes of the people who live there. So there began the Darndale pilot project when, in consultation with the wishes of local tenants' and residents associations, the scheme of redesigning the whole estate commenced. It had the positive support of the previous Government. Money was made available.
I am very happy to say that the present Government accepted the need for this fundamental redesign of Darndale and that they have supported it enthusiastically. I must pay tribute to Senator Haughey in this regard. He has been a very strong supporter of the redevelopment and refurbishment that has been taken on board. While it constitutes a beginning only, nonetheless that project showed the depth of goodwill obtaining in Darndale and the extent by which local people were prepared to become involved in what they saw as their chance to be consulted and involved in redesigning their own estate.
In view of the very adverse publicity surrounding the present troubles — and Senator Haughey has set out the context of these difficulties very clearly — it is important to say to those who do not know Darnadle that there are probably few areas in Dublin which have such a richness of voluntary organisations dedicated to trying to improve the truly bad conditions obtaining in many parts of Darndale, seeking to help people there to find employment in creative ways. The Darndale Unemployment Action Group has given me, Senator Haughey and all politicians representing the area a very rough time on various issues. Nonetheless, it is probably the most vibrant, creative and active group in the country. The local tenants and residents' association have consistently over the years set out to improve the quality of life in the area, have been very quick to point out people who have been involved in breaking the law and have sought to bring about harmony in the whole Darndale area. There are very few areas in the country where, under such adverse conditions, there is such a strong spirit of voluntary co-operation.
Senator Haughey made a point which is vitally important — in spite of the size of the travellers' encampment close to Darndale in a very unsightly place, the majority of the people of Darndale have had very good relations indeed with the travelling community far better and more Christian than that prevailing in many of the more affluent parts of this city. There has been a greater understanding that travellers have rights and specific problems. There has been a very strong, conscious effort to ensure that the plight of the travelling people was understood and the demands for their rights fully supported.
It is in that context that the present publicity surrounding the trouble in Darndale is to be regretted. Local people feel they have enough difficulties without the area having the stigma of the bad publicity. Often when a young person seeking a job gives an address in Darndale this itself, is almost seen as a disadvantage. I want to ensure that the picture of Darndale put across today is of a people, a community, striving against the odds to redress great injustices which have been visited upon them, striving to make the best of the community spirit, to build up a proper sense of community, to tackle in a community way, the enormous social and employment problems more present there than in most other places. It is that picture I want to attempt to get across today, to try to undo the harm caused by much of the recent adverse publicity.
The problems of Darndale are probably more intense and more deeply rooted than in any other similar community in the country. The real problems of Darndale need the attention of a Government task force with a blueprint to draw up, at great speed, a programme for action. There are ideas in abundance among the people of Darndale as to what needs to be done and how such can be done to render Darndale a viable, living community of which the people living there can be truly proud. The ideas are there. There is a terrible sense of isolation —either that Government is not listening or that there are so many varied and serried Government agencies that nothing will ever be done. I would ask Senator Haughey, his party and the House if it would be possible to make a recommendation to the Government that a task force be appointed, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that the problems which are specific or peculiar to Darndale are tackled urgently, ensuring that we do not have a repetition of the unfortunate events of recent days.
I welcome the fact that the House found time to respond so quickly to a matter of some considerable concern. During my election campaign I had as an assenter Nan Joyce of the travelling community. If this morning Senator McGowan elevated me to the status of professor — he quite regularly refers to the school of life and hardship —then the leaders of the travelling community are professors of this university of hardship. I am sorry he is not here to listen and learn about them.
The saddest story I heard this year was from a young woman who lived in a small provincial town. Her name is Aoife. She likes dancing, to go to the disco in the local town on a Saturday night but on her way to the disco she has to call into the local Garda station where she is issued with a special ticket. The first ten of the special ticketholders are allowed into the disco. The special tickets are for travellers and the quota of travellers allowed into that disco is ten. I raise this point because quite regularly we became emotional about the problems of South Africa and apartheid thousands of miles away from us. This really is the system of pass laws operating in an Irish provincial town. It is apartheid Irish-style. It is abhorrent and offensive.
Recently I learned of a member of my union, the INTO, working in support of travellers and travellers' rights who had organised a function for them in a Dublin hotel. The function had been booked and arranged, tickets were sold and they were ready to operate. When the proprietors of the hotel discovered that they were a group of travellers they cancelled the booking and put them out of the hotel. I raise this point but because it is something that will probably be tested in the courts in a short time I am prevented from saying more because of the sub judice rule.
As Senators Haughey and Manning both said, it is quite unfortunate that the reporting of the Darndale events presented the community there in such an unfortunate manner. I would agree with both Senators that the Darndale community is not one that could be described as racist in any sense. I have worked in adult education and unemployed groups there myself. I know the people, many of the community groups there and I can subscribe to what has been said. They are a vital, energetic and tightly-knit community who have always striven to improve the quality of life in their area. The Darndale Tenants' Association and other community groups have always worked to promote good relations between travellers and the settled community.
The people of Darndale, though suffering from the highest levels of under-privilege and socio-economic deprivation, have always found time to consider those less-well-off than themselves, have always found time to support travellers and their rights. At this moment community leaders and groups are meeting with travellers in Darndale to discuss how they can prevent a worsening of this terrible situation. That demonstrates their concern and commitment to finding a solution. It also underlines their sense of frustration. Because of the way events there have been reported, people outside Darndale may well feel there are circumstances prevailing there that can be stopped or started at will. Some events go beyond the control of normal communities. The people are trying to retain control in a very difficult situation.
At present in Darndale the travelling community feel frightened and besieged and the settled community is worried and frustrated, all because a small, unrepresentative group have behaved in a violent, obnoxious and dangerous way. We cannot ignore the petrol bombs and stone throwing at the gardaí and the riots in the streets in Darndale. We must learn something from it.
Racism in any form is offensive and as citizens we should always find it unacceptable but we, as legislators, have a very special duty in this area. We must learn from this and similar incidents and we must commit ourselves to introduce legislation which will outlaw racism in all its forms. It is scandalous that Ireland is being used by fascist and racist groups throughout the world to get material printed and distributed. That is an area which touches on this issue and we must make ourselves aware of it and do our best to outlaw it.
Following the recent attacks, threats, violence, eviction and intimidation of the travelling community, they now find themselves living in a state of siege and fear. I agree we need to have a special task force in the Darndale area but there have been reports previously on related issues and we have not had the action to which we are entitled. There is still victimisation of a section of the Irish people. The lack of respect and concern for travellers' rights has many forms. Travellers are now being harassed and outright hostility is being manifested towards them by a very small minority, but it is a small minority who give a bad impression of the general status. Attacks such as these take from the dignity, self-respect and confidence of the travelling people.
Travellers have their own culture, their own values and they are a dignified, committed and caring people. They have the same proportion of bad eggs in their midst as the settled community have but one of the tragedies of Irish life is that when a traveller is found guilty of some action it reflects on the entire travelling community whereas the obverse does not happen in the case of a member of the settled community. This is where we must educate the community at large. Travellers must be accorded their full rights as citizens. They are a particular ethnic group, with their own language, their own customs, their own lifestyle, their own culture. All of us, be it in the trade union movement, in politics or wherever decisions are taken and where there is power, have a duty towards this minority group. We must give leadership to allay and break down the barriers of fear and suspicion that exist between the settled community and the travellers. The Government have a duty to provide halting sites, group housing schemes, health care, education and social rights for travellers. Certainly members of my own union, the INTO, have——
Senator O'Toole, stay with the statement of the day, please.
Indeed, I accept the correction. We can learn from Darndale. We can learn that we need to meet with both settled and travelling communities and find out what we can do to prevent further outbreaks of this kind of unacceptable violence. We must state that confrontation politics are not on, we must say that there is enough space and goodwill in the country for all of us and, finally, we must say that the strength of any democracy can be measured only by the yardstick of how it looks after its minorities. Let us learn from Darndale, let us ensure that it does not happen again and let us give travellers their full rights.