FG councillor on travellers.

The_Minister

I just saw this on politics.ie http://www.enniscorthyecho.ie/news/story.asp?j=27439&cat=news
All I can say is, wow.I never thought any politician would be so honest about his views (even if they are pig-plop).
I hope that Fine Gael take the nomination off him, or at least distance themselves from his remarks.

Dave!

Yeah he was on the radio a few days ago defending himself. I can't see FG taking any action as a result (the story is already finished, suprisingly), because I imagine it's what most of Enniscorthy is thinking.

Dancor

I agree with him, About time someone said something about these leechers, I dont know why his party would ''distance'' themselfs from him, Not as if many travelers vote.

gurramok

Wel, maybe he was trying to prevent another Dunsink, you know where squatters can have staying rights after 12 years and be paid off with millions of taxpayers money to move on.
Maybe he just had a long term view to protect Enniscorthy?

Dave!

dancor wrote:

Not as if many travelers vote.

Good point

purple'n'gold

The_Minister wrote:

I just saw this on politics.ie http://www.enniscorthyecho.ie/news/story.asp?j=27439&cat=news
All I can say is, wow.I never thought any politician would be so honest about his views (even if they are pig-plop).
I hope that Fine Gael take the nomination off him, or at least distance themselves from his remarks.

Paddy Kavanagh is saying out loud what the VAST majority of people in Co Wexford are thinking. And there is absolutely NO chance of Fine Gael taking any action against him, except maybe (at a local Fine Gael level) to warmly congratulate him.

lostexpectation

ah the old accuse other of what your actually advocating trick

The encroachment of caravans in Salville Road and areas of Drumgoold was tantamount to “ethnic cleansing” by forcing people to move away from the area, he added.

accusing them of rape and pillaging etc is just slightly OTT at a council meeting... a reprimand is in order.

Dave!

It's certainly colourful language...

marcsignal

dancor wrote:

I agree with him, About time someone said something about these leechers, I dont know why his party would ''distance'' themselfs from him, Not as if many travelers vote.

im with you dancor, I know it's wrong to tar ALL travellers with the same brush, and that there are also people in the settled community who pay no taxes (some of them stinking rich as it happens) but society dosen't owe travellers any special consessions, they choose to live the way they do, and more often than not they give the two fingers to same society that always seems to bend over backwards so as not to offend them.
I can completely understand why the people of enniscorthy wouldn't want another dunsink lane there...

sorry i'm just gonna stop there, the steam is pissing out of my ears already...

lostexpectation

marcsignal wrote:

im with you dancor, I know it's wrong to tar ALL travellers with the same brush, and that there are also people in the settled community who pay no taxes (some of them stinking rich as it happens) but society dosen't owe travellers any special consessions, they choose to live the way they do, and more often than not they give the two fingers to same society that always seems to bend over backwards so as not to offend them.
I can completely understand why the people of enniscorthy wouldn't want another dunsink lane there...

sorry i'm just gonna stop there, the steam is pissing out of my ears already...

ah yes you being perfect example of this supposed society that bends over backwards not to offend...
well atleast you've got more restraint then the councillor

eddiehobbs

Colourfull language maybe but hes spot on. Travellers get away with too much these days and many behave as if the law dosnt apply to them. Thats why theres resentment towards them. Personally speaking ive had many more negative than positive experiences with members of the travelling community

purple'n'gold

lostexpectation wrote:

ah the old accuse other of what your actually advocating trick



accusing them of rape and pillaging etc is just slightly OTT at a council meeting... a reprimand is in order.

There will be no reprimand.

The_Minister

DaveMcG wrote:

It's certainly colourful language...

That's my problem with it. It's not what he said (he is free to his opinions) but the way he said it.

moe_sizlak

eddiehobbs wrote:

Colourfull language maybe but hes spot on. Travellers get away with too much these days and many behave as if the law dosnt apply to them. Thats why theres resentment towards them. Personally speaking ive had many more negative than positive experiences with members of the travelling community

had some dealings with travellers in the past few yrs , they dont some painting for me , the 1st guy who did it conned me , the paint fell off after 6 months , he charged me peanuts but he was a monkey
the 2nd group of travellers painted for me less than 6 months ago , seems a better job but it was much more expensive and they kept coming back to me for about a month trying to get more work out of me plus they would only take cash and considering it was several thousand euro , i did not have it there and then
as i see it when you employ a traveller to do some work , you have to be prepared to be ripped off in some shape or form , its a principal of theres to be crooked

karen3212

Sometimes I have to laugh at the people that get ripped off by travellers, and forget about the times the settled community do the same thing. Some of the richest people in Ireland move when they think they might have to pay more tax.

I also can't believe he wants to put the travellers into the sea, what does he want to do with them there, drown them all. This politician is Hitler, and should be fired and ignored, he will only make miseries of more lives if he continues to influence society. Not in my back yard, where does he expect them to live?

mikemac

You're entitled to your opinion Karen but I'd say the vast majority of the Enniscorthy population support his views but were afraid of the PC brigade to say it. Or maybe there don't have a high public profile.

As another poster mentioned, travellers aren't known for voting so I'd say this councillor did not harm to his career at all

marcsignal

lostexpectation wrote:

ah yes you being perfect example.....

em ? and do you think could find it within yourself to pay me the courtesy of explaining exactly what you mean by that ?? :cool:

karen3212 wrote:

Sometimes I have to laugh at the people that get ripped off by travellers.......

pensioners being beaten to within an inch of their lives, locked in wardrobes, and cleaned out, of the often small amount of cash they have ??? odd thing to find funny ok it's an extreme example, but not as if it hasn't happened.

micmclo wrote:

...but were afraid of the PC brigade to say it.......

which IMO is the reason, we sometimes, out of the blue, have the pressure cooker lid blowing off, and people reacting with colourful language, maybe, just maybe, it will encourage a proper debate in the house about whole issue.

OK fine, the representative group Pave Point is a necessary, legitimate group with a valid agenda, but sometimes I honestly believe they're their own worst enemy. They did serious damage to their own credibility, and their public image, by sticking their oar in over the whole Roma M50 thing, and also defending the indefensible from time to time

The Corinthian

This politician has seemingly stirred up a debate on Travellers, regardless of the language he used, which is not a bad thing.

Unfortunately it is true that as a group they pay few if any taxes, yet expect the same society that they fail to contribute to, to contribute to them. While one may support any group's right to live according to their own traditions, they still are part of the society they share with those who do not share those traditions and if they take from that society without contributing then ultimately they are parasitic. Not a nice term, but that's the bottom line.

They are not the only group like this. Roma gypsies are another, as are certain settled subcultures in the inner cities who consider a life of dependency on social welfare to be the norm.

Why exactly are we not doing something to change this?

Bottle_of_Smoke

I'm stuck on the traveller issue. I mean you do hear a lot of stories. Obviously one can't take them for face value but with the hostility I feel from travellers (that I've realised are travellers) it wouldn't surprise me that they have complete disreguard for settled people.

In a sense you can't blame them. Interraicial marriages are still quite uncommon but marrying a traveller isn't even joked about.

Everyone looks down at them so it's a bit naive to expect them to be motivated enough to improve themselves for our benefit. We can't complain unless we're making an effort to try & look past stereotypes & treat them better.

karen3212

marcsignal wrote:

pensioners being beaten to within an inch of their lives, locked in wardrobes, and cleaned out, of the often small amount of cash they have ??? odd thing to find funny ok it's an extreme example, but not as if it hasn't happened.

And ah, is it only travellers or all travellers that are anti-social?
Yes proper debate, like putting them into the sea, have you come up with a solution to cleanse this world of their type? Would you call it the Final Solution?

The Corinthian

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

In a sense you can't blame them. Interraicial marriages are still quite uncommon but marrying a traveller isn't even joked about.

Travellers are not a separate race. Attaching the race card to them has a pretty recent, and cynical, attempt to kill off any criticism by using politically correct morality.

Everyone looks down at them so it's a bit naive to expect them to be motivated enough to improve themselves for our benefit. We can't complain unless we're making an effort to try & look past stereotypes & treat them better.

Of course we can complain, why can't we? Are you suggesting that any anti-social aspects to the Traveller lifestyle and culture are simply due to the attitudes of the settled community? That if we modified our attitudes their tax receipts would suddenly sky rocket, for example?

If any segment of society is screwing another, it is perfectly normal and acceptable for the latter to resent it.

karen3212 wrote:

And ah, is it only travellers or all travellers that are anti-social?

It would appear, more correctly, that it is the Traveller (sub-)culture that is anti-social.

Yes proper debate, like putting them into the sea, have you come up with a solution to cleanse this world of their type? Would you call it the Final Solution?

No, that wouldn't be a proper debate, that would be a sensational attempt to paint any criticism of Travellers as akin to Nazism so as to stifle debate.

aidan24326

Even if his words were somewhat ill-chosen I would commend him for being honest enough to come out and say what he said, knowing the PC police would lambast him for it. The Corinthian is spot on in what he has said.

Travellers would do well to have some understanding of why there's often this type of hostility towards them, something most of them appear not to have. They have the right to live a travelling lifestyle if they so wish but whether they like it or not they have certain responsibilities to respect the settled society that they've rejected.

They're quite happy to take from that society anything they can get but don't want to give anything back. It's hypocritical really, wanting this vagabond lifestyle on the one hand but quite happy to engage with settled society whenever there's a handout going or a vacant parking lot to be squatted in.

If they would like to be treated with less animosity, not leaving an almighty mess everywhere they go would be a start. They don't consider that it's ordinary Joe Taxpayer in the settled community who has to foot the bill to clean up after them, often substantial costs, not to mention the eyesore, pollution etc. Would it be too much to ask that they might clean up their own tipheap before they move on?

karen3212

The Corinthian wrote:

Of course we can complain, why can't we? Are you suggesting that any anti-social aspects to the Traveller lifestyle and culture are simply due to the attitudes of the settled community? That if we modified our attitudes their tax receipts would suddenly sky rocket, for example?

If any segment of society is screwing another, it is perfectly normal and acceptable for the latter to resent it.

It would appear, more correctly, that it is the Traveller (sub-)culture that is anti-social.

No, that wouldn't be a proper debate, that would be a sensational attempt to paint any criticism of Travellers as akin to Nazism so as to stifle debate.

They are subject to the laws of this country as all people here are. The revenue looks at all our taxes too. You continue in your post above to treat them all as one, and their culture as inferior to yours. They have their own culture and lifestyle, as do you. I have no right to tell you how to celebrate/live your life. Why do you think you have the right to tell travellers how to live. Oh, if only we could all live as you do, only drink as much as you do, excercise as much as you do, then oh then wouldn't you live in a perfect world.

I have not seen you condemn the politician who said he would put them all in the sea? Do you agree with him then? Silence is agreement imo.

marcsignal

karen3212 wrote:

And ah, is it only travellers or all travellers that are anti-social ?

No, Ive already made it clear that you can't tar ALL travellers with the same brush, AND that there are tax dodgers and chancers in the settled community(see post # 9)

As for your reference to The Final Solution, other than to say that is No Solution, I'm sorry, it just does not dignify a response.:cool:

The Corinthian wrote:

Travellers are not a separate race. Attaching the race card to them has a pretty recent, and cynical, attempt to kill off any criticism by using politically correct morality.

Here Here, I just don't buy the whole PC concept, sorry. Long before we were enlightned by this, essentially, American idea, we had a thing called 'Mutual Respect' and that still works for me. The trouble, for some people, is the fact that respect is a two way street. IMO Nobody has a God given right to respect, it must shown BY you, and earned BY you FROM the people around you, through the way you choose to interact.

aidan24326

karen3212 wrote:

They are subject to the laws of this country as all people here are

Problem is they tend to not see it quite like that. Multiple convictions for petty crime are not unusual. Granted there are plenty in the settled community in that boat too, but I don't see anyone clapping them on the back either.

The revenue looks at all our taxes too.

So The Revenue assesses all travellers do they? News to me. Many of them deal only in cash, so nigh on impossible to assess them.

I have no right to tell you how to celebrate/live your life

Quite right. What you do have is a right to have your way of life treated with a little respect and that my choice of lifestyle doesn't impinge on yours. i.e that I don't squat in your property for a few months then move on leaving a mountain of rubbish, damaged/stolen property etc.

Why do you think you have the right to tell travellers how to live?

Nobody said any such thing. This is simply a case of certain things being unacceptable. We can't all choose to live absolutely any way we like. It doesn't work like that. I can't decide that I'm going to make my living off robbing others, or that I'd like to become a hitman and make my money from contract killings. Well I could of course, but the society I live in doesn't permit this for good reasons and so I would have to face the consequences were I caught. Whether we like it or not we're all bound by certain social and legal constraints.

I have not seen you condemn the politician who said he would put them all in the sea? Do you agree with him then? Silence is agreement imo

I can't speak for The Corinthian but I can say that I don't agree entirely with the choice of words and said so in a previous post. The comment about putting them out in the sea was obviously said in the heat of the moment and can be taken as such.

JimiTime

I do think a debate is needed. High illiteracy rates. Domestic violence. Anti-social behaviour. Tax evasion. Driving while uninsured. Robbery. Leaving places they stop in a terrible state. A culture of bare knuckle boxing, dog fights etc. I would certainly say that they do themselves no favours in the PR department. I've known a couple of lovely settled travellers, but both myself and people I know have been victims of numerous amounts of their more negative stereotypes. I lived in England for a few years, and unfortunately, they haven't exactly endeared themselves to the locals over there neither. I've grown up around them, have had dealings with them, and hung around with some in my younger days. IMO, its not a culture i could defend. As I said, in my experience, alot of domestic abuse, bad education and huge crime rate. There is no doubt, there are good people in the travelling community, but I would certainly be weary. Its sad, but I do think a debate must happen. In response to Karen, I don't think they should be sent to sea (obviously), but their 'culture', needs to be assesed. The politician in question, was obviously frustrated with what has happened, and as a public figure should have been more careful with his words, but I empathise with his situation. I would not go saying he's hitler etc. That leads the debate down an emotional and irrational path. I'm all for rational debate on the matter, its been a long time coming.

The Corinthian

karen3212 wrote:

They are subject to the laws of this country as all people here are. The revenue looks at all our taxes too.

It's arguable how subject to the laws of this country they are is the issue. Without a fixed address and given a propensity to use only cash, how exactly do you suggest that you apply those laws?

You continue in your post above to treat them all as one, and their culture as inferior to yours.

I certainly can treat them aggregately as a demographic, because they are one.

As for suggesting that their culture is inferior, I did no such thing. I said that given that they take from a society they do not contribute to then one can certainly say it is by definition parasitic, but that is not the same as suggesting something is either superior or inferior.

They have their own culture and lifestyle, as do you. I have no right to tell you how to celebrate/live your life. Why do you think you have the right to tell travellers how to live.

What an idiotic assertion. Of course you have a right to tell me how I live my life - when my lifestyle choice impinges upon yours. The whole point of society - of civilization - is that humans find a means of coexisting in communities which inevitably means that we sacrifice the absolute right to do whatever we please.

Oh, if only we could all live as you do, only drink as much as you do, excercise as much as you do, then oh then wouldn't you live in a perfect world.

Do you always speak in cliches?

I have not seen you condemn the politician who said he would put them all in the sea? Do you agree with him then? Silence is agreement imo.

I've not condemned him because I don't believe he meant it literally. If I did I would.

marcsignal

karen3212 wrote:

Silence is agreement imo.

............an old "Simon and Garfunkel" Classic springs to mind

karen3212

I still find the failure to condemn this politician absolutely disgusting.

For anyone who wants to read about travellers in Ireland I found this site interesting.

http://www.nccri.ie/travellr.html

Oh, and define cliche,

if you are referring to the fact that a man who says travellers should be put in the sea is Hitler like, then that is not a cliche.

The Corinthian

karen3212 wrote:

I still find the failure to condemn this politician absolutely disgusting.

And we find it perplexing how you have failed to grasp why we have not condemned him.

No one has condemned him because no one believes he meant it literally. What we believe (and it has been pointed out repeatedly to you by posters here) is that he voiced his frustrations in the only way open to him in a society that has repeatedly failed to address the anti-social behavior of one of its demographic groups.

Actually that you have failed to even acknowledge that the settled community might even have such frustrations is pretty disgusting too.

For anyone who wants to read about travellers in Ireland I found this site interesting.

A lot of that piece was serious bull, TBH. For example, it spends a good chunk of the time attempting to muddy the waters on a definition of racism, so as to widen it, yet fails to ever deliver one. This leaves the reader in a situation where racism has been mentioned so often that they would be forgiven if they thought it was even relevant to the subject. It's not.

if you are referring to the fact that a man who says travellers should be put in the sea is Hitler like, then that is not a cliche.

Yes it's a cliche. You've from the onset of this thread attempted to make a ham-fisted parallel implying that this chap was, or was akin to the Nazis. Spend enoungh time on the internet and you'll realize that it's the oldest and laziest way of trying to win an argument. You might take the time to read up on Godwin's Law when you have time, actually.

marcsignal

karen3212 wrote:

I still find the failure to condemn this politician absolutely disgusting.

ok Karen, in all fairness you are right, as a politician he should have shown more restraint, but I just think it reflects just how immotive the whole issue has become. Don't you agree ? I mean if a man in his position is going to blow a gasket in his official capacity, then it just shows there is a large degree of frustration in the settled community over the whole issue.

I personally blame the PC lobbiests for creating this situation, because they stifle, what I believe are guenuine concerns many people have about Travellers. People become afraid to voice these concerns, for fear someone will call them a "big fat nazi racist", these feelings fester, and then when someone speaks out, it becomes a feeding frenzy. That's what I think is dangerous.

I also, believe it or not, feel genuine sympathy for the Traveller Women and Children, because I don't think, given the choice, any woman would WANT to send her children out to beg.

I'd much prefere to see a Pragmatic Solution than a Final Solution, any day, but in order for that to work, we have to stop poncing around the problem and establish what is acceptable in a civilised society, and what is not, for BOTH sides, agree on that, and work from there.

If it was ever allowed to degenerate again into another Padraig Nally situation, the damage it would be catostrophic for relations between both communities.

I'm Irish, but you can see where I'm living now. I have to pass KZ Dachau every day going to work, and it's a reminder, to me anyway, of where situations like this could lead, in a worst case scenario, and despite what anybody has posted here, I'm pretty sure nobody would really want that.