A Matter Of Life And Death

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This afternoon.

Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin

Members of Pavee Point and the Roma Centre hand over (to junior justice minister Aodhan O’Riordan) a petition of 5,463 signatures from people offering solidarity with the bereaved families and the wider traveller community in the wake of the Carrickmines fire tragedy last month.

The groups are seeking the set up of a Traveller Agency to drive “improvements in traveller accommodation, health, education and employment”.

From top: Michael Collins, Manu Paun and Patrick Reilly; Co-directer of the Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, Ronnie Fay, Tessa Collins, Labour Party Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality and Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Aodhan O’Riordan and Tracy Reilly

(Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie)

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73 thoughts on “A Matter Of Life And Death”

  2. Wayne.F

    Could Pave point not fill the role?
    5,463 signatures? That’s a pretty small number, considering there is 30,00 travellers in Ireland

  3. Bing Gong Gone

    This is going to get messy. I reckon there will be two categories. Those who think that Travellers deserve to be treated more favourably than those in minimum wage employment and those who think that Travellers need to show some more accountability for their situation.

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      “Those who think that Travellers deserve to be treated more favourably than those in minimum wage employment”

      Huh?

      1. Bing Gong Gone

        How many people do you know in minimum wage employment that get accommodation given to them for free?

  5. Anomanomanom

    Pavee point would boil your blood. Never a mention of the things travellers do wrong, like literally taking over ennis and wrecking it. Generational fighting between families, wrecking nearly any site their on and then leaving it a dump. I could be here all night. And none of these things are racist there just facts.

        2. Anomanomanom

          It’s not controversial it’s fact. I drink with travellers iv no problems with the ones i know. But you need to get a job pulling a cart because your blinker vision is better than any horse. And someone please explain how it is in fact racist, Go to ennis and have a look, in fact go anywhere travellers are or have just left.

          2. Anomanomanom

            Of course it does. I’m trying to show i know it’s not all of them, but in my dealings it is well over 50%.

      2. scottser

        what a shame sepp blatter’s gone, FIFA are great for recognising nationhood even when the UN doesn’t. they could milk a few million for a footie team too. watch this space..

  6. Owen

    I did chuckle thinking of someone handing in a sheet with 5,463 ‘X’s on it.

    ‘See there. That 5,463 signatures boss. All in agreement’.

  7. ollie

    I’ve been a victim of crime twice. Once by Irish travellers, once by Roma travellers. My experiences form my opinions.

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      I’ve been mugged once. By a Dubliner. My parents home was broken into. By Dubliners. Using ollie logic, it’s perfectly fine for me to say people from Dublin are degenerate criminals, right?

          1. scottser

            you know, they kidnap these bikes and do inhumane and bizarre experiments on them in order to create the next generation of super-bikes.

        1. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

          I’m a Dubliner.
          Whenever me and me mates mug, rob or steal we always use Traveller accents.
          Then we escape on horseback.

          Works every time.

  10. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

    I agree with Anonomoron above regarding ‘Generational fighting between families‘.
    (And nothing else.)

    If Travellers want to progress in getting better rights they have to unite as one voice first, not seven or eight shouting over each and calling each other ‘buckets of s****’ on Youtube.
    There should be an organisation…
    …oh wait….

    1. MoyestWithExcitement

      You’d swear that organised bare knuckle boxing matches have absolutely nothing to do with travellers getting basic human rights.

      1. Clampers Outside!

        Stop fudging stuff you know to make a point.

        Free homes isn’t “basic”, it’s something above and beyond, and is something a lot more than minimum wage earners get. Let’s just be clear on that.

        I know some will say but others get X, cause they’re settled and travelers don’t etc…. That’s not my point. My point is, it’s not “basic” it’s more than that.

        1. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

          Ha ha, Clampers,
          Your overuse of the word ‘Point’ is something I should’ve used in my comment.

          Thanks for the endorsement.

        2. MoyestWithExcitement

          Ok then.

          You’d swear organised bare knuckle boxing matches have absolutely nothing to do with travellers getting human rights. Better? Different at all?

  12. Truth in the News

    We are a Republic and all Citizens are equal, enacting a special status
    would be unconstitutional…..anyone know anything about the actions of
    Sligo County Council a week ago demolishing a stucturally sound dwelling
    previously occupied by travellers on the Ballina Road outside Tubbercurry
    In light of the fact that the Council is up to its lugs in debt why was’nt the
    house sold off.

  13. ahjayzis

    It’s time for travellers to settle. Nomadic lifestyles and way, waaaaaaay out of date customs like marrying too young and opting out of education shouldn’t be glorified or promoted in one group out of tradition and looked down on in another group by reason of, you know, reason. It’s discriminatory to their kids at the very least who end up totally disadvantaged compared to the rest of us.

    1. Oh Dear

      Ah. So your tolerance and celebrating diversity really only extends to gay issues. Other groups have to conform.

      Got it, thanks. Hard work following your ‘liberal’ values! They must be an Irish version.

      1. ahjayzis

        Which items I mentioned do you actively ‘celebrate’?

        The worryingly young marriage age?
        Leaving education early?
        The faux-nomadic lifystyle which often results in them turning down perfectly adequate council housing in lieu of a halting site?

        Which ones of those?

        Do you think children housed in portacabins by settled people wouldn’t attract more attention from social services? Is that not discriminatory?

        Honestly, explain to me why it’s healthy to continue with outmoded culutral traits? There’s nothing illiberal about pointing out facets of a culture directly negatively affecting people – I deplore tonnes of things gay culture does.

        1. Oh Dear

          And because some members of the Traveling community engage in behaviour you find problematic (which could be fixed by better education and support), you want them to pack up their entire culture?

          Some gay people engage in problematic behaviour with drugs and promiscuity. Does that mean gay people didn’t ‘earn’ gay marriage in your eyes? At what point will Travellers ‘earn’ the right to exist? Maybe as long as they don’t ‘do it in public’ and rub our faces in it? Sound familiar?

          I’m glad you’re so ready to ‘cure’ their deficiencies by ending their culture. Ahjaysiz knows best, everyone. Small-c conservatism at its best, and blinkered to your hypocrisy.

          2. ahjayzis

            Sigh…

            Your conflation is bull since I never once argued that giving me and the rest of Gaydom equal rights would solve the problems of some gay men being idiots around safe sex, drug abuse and whatever else – I constantly and regularly post about how we need to get our fupping act together, ourselves.

            But fine, you’ve browbeaten me enough so the problems I mentioned no longer exist – they’re all right as they are. Their clinging to aspects of their culture massively unsuited to the 21st century plays zero role in the massive demographic, social, health and financial crises their community faces. All these things are purely the fault of everyone else.

            And we all know dropping the bad parts from ones culture means destruction of that culture in it’s entirety, which is why the rest of Irish society clings desperately to beloveed institutions like Magadalene laundies, clerical dominance of our government, psychotic sexual prurience and everything else we decided not to shed in the last 50 years so we could still be Irish.

          3. ahjayzis

            And *never* have I argued for special rights for gay people to make up for the crap we’ve put up with over the years. I don’t see what’s wrong in saying that the standard of accommodation in social housing for the general public should be the same as that for travelers, gays, Roma, Poles, leprechauns.

          4. Oh Dear

            Wow, way to miss the point and engage in histrionics. Have you been learning debating style from rotide? I suggest their problems could be fixed with education and support from the government and settled community and you go full Irish-Godwin.

            Also – trying to play the victim doesn’t suit you. You’re far too much of a bully.

          5. ahjayzis

            Oh, get her.

            You’re the one who succumbed to hand-wringing hysteria and tired, lazy insults at the drop of the hat at the heresy that a *cintilla* of the problem could lie in the way travelers and Roma insist on total separateness yet demand full subvention for quirky outdated, unsustainable cultural norms and a total revulsion of integration with wider society.

            The truth lies probably somewhere in between our two arguments – I know that, but you’re so busy luxuriating in the warmth of your altruistic purity pashmina it doesn’t really matter, you get to feel better by playing shining knight of the downtrodden for the small price of ignoring half the bloody picture.

          7. rotide

            My debating style?

            Dude, when you actually address a single one of ahjayzis points, then maybe you can talk about debating styles.

            You haven’t actually countered any of the arguments brought up here apart from vaguely handwave something about education and support.

    2. sǝɯǝɯʇɐpɐq

      Agreed.
      I e-mailed him a while ago for confirmation that he was actually doing something about our stupid drug laws, and he assured me he was, (from his i-Phone, which I didn’t need to know and he needn’t have told me.)
      I thought he was genuine.

      THEN, this morning I read this on Reddit.
      https://goo.gl/DmWZxz

      All faith I had in the man boy went out the window.

  15. gorugeen

    I was involved in the development of several accommodation sites for travellers in a past life. Top notch everything went into the (free) houses. all came with ample room for caravan etc. The result? in six months ALL dwellings had been utterly destroyed/vandalised beyond repair. Wanton destruction by the tenants and then get this…they complain to the council that they are living in sub standard accommodation. Were such behaviours displayed in the settled community d’ya think it would be tolerated? I think not. Why the hell should we pander to this? Pavee point can go and poo.

    1. ahjayzis

      Jesus that’s very prejudiced, ya big auld racist now. It’s everyone else’s fault that this happened.

  17. Bortolo

    Did I hear yer man from Pavee point saying it was the government’s fault that travelers leave school earlier than settled folk?

    By the way, how many of those who said they’d take in Syrian refugees volunteered to take in travelers from Carickmines? I didn’t see any “Travelers Welcome” banners out?

  19. b

    Will you give us a break. In the first place the Travellers have nothing to do with the Roma. nothing. the Travellers are Irish..

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