When the story of Ireland's early 21st century attempts to become a multicultural society is told, Ballinruane in east Galway may represent a turning point. Not just because a group of parents decided to withdraw their children from the local national school when Travellers arrived in the area, not just because of the prejudices and fears that this reflected, rather, because the State gave a very clear response to its role in the crisis.
"Only a few years ago, it might not have been so, but the Department of Education and Science reacted swiftly to uphold the rights of the Traveller children," says Irish Traveller Movement (ITM) spokesman Fintan Farrell. Five Traveller children are now on the school register, but there are no winners in this row. The Irish Times has confirmed that the 12 children of local residents who were attending the school in question have been relocated to neighbouring schools - eight to one school and four to another.
The decision was taken by their parents, after one resident had objected to this group of Traveller children joining the school - prompting the chair of the board of management at St Joseph's to close the school for two days.
Brid Connolly, principal of St Joseph's, and her assistant face an uncertain future. The Department of Education and Science said late last week that talks were taking place with the board of management on the school's long-term future. It may not now have one.
"We are not taking a big stick approach," a Department spokesman said. "But we are concerned at the low level of enrolment, and its concentration. Our policy is one of integration."
The Ballinruane parents had stressed in a statement issued at the time that they were not "anti-Traveller", and Galway East TD Ulick Burke has said that he believes the influx of new pupils was the nub of the problem. Initially, it appeared as if the school's register was going to double overnight, and there were fears of possible disruption. "Yet if a group of Germans or Americans arrived into an area like that, wouldn't they be welcomed into a small school with open arms?" says Margaret ╙ R∅ada of the Galway Travellers' Support Group (GTSG).
Maugie Francis, the Department of Education's national education officer for Travellers, says that a visiting teacher was present at Ballinruane to support the Travellers. She says that no request was made by the school's board of management for help.
Under the Department's extensive programme of support for Travellers in formal education, visiting teachers act as intermediaries between Travelling communities and schools. They will also visit halting sites to encourage Traveller children to stay in the school system. And there are now many more of them, partly due to measures put in place since the 1995 report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community (see panel).
Official policy is no longer based on the view that Traveller children automatically have difficulties that require "special" segregated classes. Some 5,500 members of the community now mix with their contemporaries in mainstream primary classes, and some 460 resource teachers have been employed to assist with specific needs. There are now 51 pre-schools for Travellers nationwide, and 140 post-primary schools have extra teaching hours for the estimated 1,178 Travellers studying at that level.
Galway has by far the largest number, according to the most recently available statistics, and the work of the GTSG and the National Traveller Women's Forum has a very positive influence, says Francis.
Julia Sweeney of the GTSG is a Traveller and is also a community employment supervisor. She works with a resource teacher in Mervue, Galway, and says she spends most of her time telling stories drawn from her own cultural background. It is, she says, her way of "building something strong between teacher, pupil and Traveller", based on nuturing respect for cultural differences.
"I went through primary and I am sorry I left," says Sweeney. "Travellers are not becoming doctors, nurses and garda∅ and they should be, by now."
The youngest of her four children, Sonny (11), is a great artist, and she is determined to ensure that "he gets what the other three older ones didn't". One of her three daughters, all now in their 20s, was part of an award-winning team at the recent Cork Film Fleadh.
Sweeney believes that there is a lot of fear among younger Travellers, and a lot of bullying at school. She says it deters many from continuing - a high percentage of Traveller children quit at the end of primary and enlist in training centres, rather than continuing into post-primary. However, more schools in the Galway area are adopting an "open door" policy - which all are required to anyway under equality legislation. Boards of management, which can exercise subtle selection through their own recruitment policies, are encouraged by financial incentives given by the State, including an allowance of one-and-a half teaching hours per Traveller pupil and a special capitation grant of well over £300 per Traveller child.
Michael McCann, principal of Presentation Convent in Galway, says that Travellers are being taken into the educational system successfully and he says he would compliment the department on its support. "But with any group, where there hasn't been a tradition of continuing in education, it is important that there should be positive role models," he adds.
He does not believe that the State can force schools to take particular groups if they don't want to, in spite of guidelines and equality legislation. If an institution is forced against its will, what sort of an atmosphere does that produce for the pupils, he asks. However, Rachel Doyle of the National Traveller Women's Forum (NWTF) says that a stronger directive is required to ensure that schools are anti-racist and intercultural in terms of both policy and practice, and that more training is required to back this up.
"There is such a history of educational disadvantage among Travellers," she says. "A point has to be arrived at where Travellers can go through the system and expect to finish. This in itself requires significant targeting, and a commitment to see it through.
"Yes, there are more Travellers in primary and post-primary school than before, and parents want their children to have a good education, but racism is still a huge issue.
"Traveller participation on boards of management is still extremely low. It is very difficult for them to play a role, particularly if they didn't have educational opportunities themselves," says Doyle.
In relation to Ballinruane, Margaret ╙ R∅ada of the GTSG believes that there is a need for schools to embrace policies that can deal with the arrival of transient families into an area. "Of course it can cause disturbance, and there was that situation in Rathkeale, Co Limerick, where settled Travellers were objecting to transients, but it shouldn't be seen by officialdom as a problem," she says.
"It may sound fanciful, but there should be a system in schools where there can be an assessment, an identification of needs, and then contact should be made with the Department of Education and Science - and the Department should be ready to respond rapidly. Travellers have a right to good quality education and we have to stop reacting all the time."
Most professionals working in the area believe that there are levels of racism - and that asylum-seekers will be more readily accepted into schools than Travellers. Francis says that the resources are there, but the nature of Irish society is such that special supports may be in place for some time.
The Department will be publishing guidelines for Traveller education in primary and post-primary schools in January, and there may be an opportunity for further in-service development.
"But we are working with a system that was originally developed for a very different society to the one we have now, and that is our challenge," Francis says.
