State 'has fostered Traveller apartheid'
SOCIETY'S failure to emancipate Travellers must rank as "one of the most serious social embarrassments" in the State's 86 years of independence, a hard-hitting report has claimed.
It calls for an end to "informal apartheid" of Traveller people and a radical change of policy to reverse the "vicious" circle" which has perpetuated the misery of one of Ireland's most valuable minorities.
The report, 'The Emancipation of the Travelling People', studied the attitudes of the Irish people towards Travellers and was based on a survey by Fr Micheal Mac Greil between November 2007 and March 2008.
It reveals that Travellers -- who number more than 22,000 and represent 0.5pc of the population -- represent a most distinguished minority which has been treated as a "lower caste".
The report said it was time to give Travellers a stake in Irish society, and calls for the raising of their standard of living accommodation, better work opportunities and an inquiry into the causes of the "appalling situation" in which Traveller life-expectancy was lower than that of the settled community.
- Fergus Black
Irish Independent
