Glencree summer school: A "peace process" should be launched between the State and minorities, a spokesman for the Travelling community told the Glencree Summer School at the weekend.
Bernard Sweeney, chairman of the Travellers Speaking for Travellers group, urged the Government to look to the North, at the models of restorative justice and the reform of the PSNI.
Support groups and human rights organisations, which have been advocating rights for Travellers, received limited funding.
"Secondly, these organisations are dominated by settled people, and, as such, are preventing the Travelling community from taking responsibility for their own issues. While many of the problems of the Travelling community, such as feuding, domestic violence, petty crime, alcoholism and drug abuse, are manifestations of structural problems such as unemployment, poor education and ill-health, the community itself has to take responsibility for, and ownership of, how it deals with these situations."
He said this did not mean abandoning Travellers to their own fate. "It means developing new ways for the settled community and the Travelling community to interact, allowing Travellers an active role in developing and implementing policy in conjunction with the agencies of the State."
He said that a high-level group on Travellers, set up by the Taoiseach, had excluded Travellers from participating in decision-making.
