Community relations need monitoring - Traveller group

The Mayo Traveller Support Group (MTSG) has called on the Department of Justice to establish an agency to monitor the relationship…

The Mayo Traveller Support Group (MTSG) has called on the Department of Justice to establish an agency to monitor the relationship between the settled and Traveller communities.

The call has come following incidents involving a group of Travellers at a pub near Swinford over the weekend.

MTSG spokesman, Mr Gearoid O'Riain, said yesterday there is a need for a substantial and constructive initiative on the part of government to address this long-term festering conflict.

According to gardaí, the vandalism which occurred last Sunday night at the Bridge Inn, in Ballymiles, near Swinford, was only one of a series of incidents involving a group of Travellers who had come into the jurisdiction from the UK since the June Bank holiday weekend.

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Supt John O'Driscoll said there had already been arrests and charges in relation to other incidents involving the ramming of a Garda car and burglary.

"We are now in the process of trying to identify the specific people in the group of 22 Travellers who vandalised the Bridge Inn. We cannot simply arrest all the group."

Supt O'Driscoll stressed that, in his experience, it is impossible to predict violent outbursts within any group, whether they are Travellers or settled people.

"We obviously regret that we were not as accurate as Mr O'Neill in predicting the potential violence", he added.

Meanwhile Mayo publicans attended an emergency meeting of the Mayo branch of the Vintners Federation of Ireland on Monday night to discuss the trouble. They voted to establish a community alert scheme whereby any large groups visiting pubs - both settled and Travellers - will be monitored.

The meeting also called on Mr John Carty TD, who was in attendance, to approach Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Mr Willie O'Dea, with regard to increasing the number of Garda working on the beat in the county.

"We don't want a repeat of last Sunday's violence again or the tensions that arose last year which culminated in the blanket ban on Travellers being served in Westport", said Mayo VFI Chairman, Mr Chris Lavelle.