Sir, – The loss of 10 lives that occurred in Carrickmines is a national tragedy.
As your article “Many Travellers are ‘at risk’ due to fire safety issues” (October 12th) pointed out, there has been a 90 per cent cut to funding for Traveller-specific accommodation over the past five years.
As someone who previously represented Travellers in the UK, where a similar situation has occurred, it was clear that government policy both in the UK and Ireland, which involved consistent and targeted cuts extending right across all areas of Traveller provision, was putting the welfare of Travellers at risk.
The impact of this on children within the Traveller community has been marked. Particularly in relation to accommodation, such cuts resulted in overcrowding, lack of maintenance and poor management of sites. It is absolutely shocking that it has taken a tragedy of this magnitude to focus attention on the situation of Travellers. – Yours, etc,
MAIREAD HEALY,
Chief Executive,
Future Voices Ireland,
Dublin 1.
Sir, – Kitty Holland (“Councils must do more for Travellers after fire”, Analysis, October 12th) lists the failure of local authorities across the State to make progress in relation to the provision of decent accommodation for Travellers.
I worked for two years as manager of the Southside Travellers Action Group and the problems listed by your reporter correspond almost exactly with those we faced 15 years ago. There is one key difference, however. At that time, no funds of any substance were provided by central government to local authorities for Traveller accommodation.
Successful lobbying by Traveller organisations, such as the Irish Traveller Movement and Pavee Point, resulted in a change in the funding approach by central government around 2006. Money was made available to local authorities.
Since then, shamefully, over €50 million allocated by the Department of the Environment for Traveller Accommodation remains unspent. €50 million!
The need for decent accommodation is obvious and the pictures and stories emerging from the tragedy in Carrickmines are clear proof of the need for radical action.
Local authorities that fail to spend their allocated budgets in this regard should face penalties and those councillors who continue to oppose Traveller accommodation plans should be shown the door at the next local elections.
Are we going to allow another generation of Traveller children to grow up in these conditions or are we going to attempt to create a fairer society for all of our children? – Yours, etc,
AODH O’CONNOR
Perrystown,
Dublin 12.