Why is Traveller disadvantage not a mainstream concern?

later12

A deposit.

I said deposit.The parents put in the deposit at the start of term. If the child does not attend, they lose their deposit. If the child attends, they get back their deposit + interest.

I am merely illustrating a way in which education can be incentivised without having to wait 14 years for the positive outcomes.

gizmo555

later12 wrote: »

I wouldn't ask for withdrawal so much as reform: eliminate welfare traps by reducing rates and making skills a requirement of welfare provision, for example. A large part of the state's expenditure on travellers presumably arises through welfare payments, so you have to tackle welfare payments as a whole. Obviously you cannot just "withdraw" welfare as an absolute policy.

As a general principle, I've long been in favour of the idea of a basic income which every citizen receives on a non-means tested basis. It retains the idea of a social welfare safety net but removes possible disincentive to work, since everyone gets it anyway.

gizmo555

later12 wrote: »

A deposit.

I said deposit.The parents put in the deposit at the start of term. If the child does not attend, they lose their deposit. If the child attends, they get back their deposit + interest.

I am merely illustrating a way in which education can be incentivised without having to wait 14 years for the positive outcomes.

Are you serious? Where would people on long-term social welfare get a deposit which would have to be sizeable enough to be a genuine motivator from?

later12

gizmo555 wrote: »

Are you serious? Where would people on long-term social welfare get a deposit which would have to be sizeable enough to be a genuine motivator from?

From their social welfare payment. It's not supposed to be affordable, that would somewhat defeat the purpose. The requirement could be applied to the parents of a child who missed N school days in the previous term, with respect to that child and on a diminishing scale with respect to second, third or fourth schoolgoing children who are also poor attendees.

glic71rods46t0

later12 wrote: »

From their social welfare payment. It's not supposed to be affordable, that would somewhat defeat the purpose. The requirement could be applied to the parents of a child who missed N school days in the previous term, with respect to that child and on a diminishing scale with respect to second, third or fourth schoolgoing children who are also poor attendees.

A total non-runner. I could see the knock on effect of such a policy being imtimidation of school authorities into doctoring attendance rather than increased attendance where the people involved place little or no value on what is being provided!

gizmo555

later12 wrote: »

From their social welfare payment. It's not supposed to be affordable, that would somewhat defeat the purpose.

Means-tested social welfare payments are supposed to be for the recipients' immediate basic needs. By definition, they can't afford any reduction in them - if they can, the levels have been set too high. What are they supposed to do - choose between food on the table or paying this so called "deposit", which is actually a fine by any other name, only without the benefit of a prior trial and conviction?

OldNotWIse

later12 wrote: »

A deposit.

I said deposit.The parents put in the deposit at the start of term. If the child does not attend, they lose their deposit. If the child attends, they get back their deposit + interest.

I am merely illustrating a way in which education can be incentivised without having to wait 14 years for the positive outcomes.

And what would be the incentive to put the deposit there in the first place?

glic71rods46t0

gizmo555 wrote: »

Means-tested social welfare payments are supposed to be for the recipients' immediate basic needs. By definition, they can't afford any reduction in them - if they can, the levels have been set too high. What are they supposed to do - choose between food on the table or paying this so called "deposit", which is actually a fine by any other name, only without the benefit of a prior trial and conviction?

A very valid point but lets remember that later12 is just floating ideas - its not a position paper or anything (as he said himself). He has produced loads of floaters in this thread.
Lots of academic ideas that just won't work in the real world

later12

Gizmo, It's not a fine, a fine is not returned to a household after 3 months, with interest accrued.

And education is an immediate and a basic need. If the Government can ask social welfare recipients to pay things like the household charge, I don't see why it should not expect social welfare recipients whose schoolgoing children display unacceptable levels of absenteeism to pay a similar or slightly higher charge.

OldNotWIse wrote: »

And what would be the incentive to put the deposit there in the first place?

A summary conviction and a fine.

gizmo555

later12 wrote: »

Gizmo, It's not a fine, a fine is not returned to a household after 3 months, with interest accrued.

If the social welfare recipient can do without part of their payment for three months, then by definition the payment was set too high.

murphaph

later12 wrote: »

From their social welfare payment. It's not supposed to be affordable, that would somewhat defeat the purpose. The requirement could be applied to the parents of a child who missed N school days in the previous term, with respect to that child and on a diminishing scale with respect to second, third or fourth schoolgoing children who are also poor attendees.

To be honest people who couldn't give a fiddlers about their children should be prosecuted for neglect. It's an age old adage that one needs a licence for a dog but can have as many kids as they want, regardless of how they rear them.

gozunda

later12 wrote: »

Again, I have no vehement interest in defending nor criticising whatever traveller culture is. I don't think anyone's culture ought to be considered inflexible or unmovable if it gets in the way of an adequate education and the potential to participate in society. This applies to travellers as much as anybody else. That's for the first point you raise.

Yes however if the will is not there due to 'cultural' influences or norms etc then you aint got a chance in hell of persuading those who do not wish to avail of FREE educational resources to do so. You also are on dangerous ground of forcing or coercing those who do not avail of education into a situation where they start to believe that they are being victimised because of who they identify themselves to be. What a traveller may consider 'adequate education' and what you might consider the same are likley to be poles apart. No amount of flexability is going to solve this problem imo

later12 wrote: »

As for the second point you raise, ask anyone from a certain vocational background if there is an expectation of continuing the family business. This applies widely across society, from newsagents to politicians to farmers to builders to horse-people, and amongst them, travellers.

Yes of course I understand this but it would appear to be a large proportion of travellers from their own admission that consider education past PS level surplus to their requirements in relation to taking up the family business. NOT newsagents, politicians, farmers, builders etc. Again this will be a brick wall to getting travellers to avail of education for the purposes of a range of wider benefits than just going to school to learn the basics.

There is no easy solution to this problem. Education is already free. Supports for traveller children are already provided. The base has been set - it is now up to traveller families to up the mark and adopt some enlightened self interest for the furure of their children and not just a cultural tunnel with no light at the end.

later12

gozunda wrote: »

Yes however if the will is not there due to 'cultural' influences or norms etc then you aint got a chance in hell of persuading those who do not wish to avail of FREE educational resources to do so.

Sorry but that just isn't true.

If we look at the developing world, we see that the problem is no longer the existence of free education: the problem in recent times has been the low level of engagement. In almost every country in the world, there is free education, at least to primary school level. And yet, it often has minimal impact because parents don't see a point in engaging, or because teacher's don't see a point in teaching. And various studies have shown that these unfortunate trends are reversible by the use of conditional cash transfers

http://www.crin.org/docs/Evaluating%20the%20Imapact%20of%20Cash%20Transfer%20Programs.pdf

I'm not suggesting we need to mirror CCTs here in Ireland, but CCTs demonstrate that it is certainly possible to incentivise and encourage parents who are hesitant to engage their children in education.

For their children's sake, I dislike the attitude that we should just step back and wipe our hands clean of any intervention, lest we be labelled paternalist or Heaven forbid, statists.

gizmo555

later12 wrote: »

I'm not suggesting we need to mirror CCTs here in Ireland, but CCTs demonstrate that it is certainly possible to incentivise and encourage parents who are hesitant to engage their children in education.

For their children's sake, I dislike the attitude that we should just step back and wipe our hands clean of any intervention, lest we be labelled paternalist or Heaven forbid, statists.

It sort of already exists here, to a very limited extent, in the form payment of child benefit for children between 16 and 18 years, provided they remain in school.

Given that the precedent is already there, why not extend it to children of all ages? Make child benefit for children of all ages conditional on regular school attendance.

gozunda

later12 wrote: »

Sorry but that just isn't true.

If we look at the developing world, we see that the problem is no longer the existence of free education: the problem in recent times has been the low level of engagement. In almost every country in the world, there is free education, at least to primary school level. And yet, it often has minimal impact because parents don't see a point in engaging, or because teacher's don't see a point in teaching. And various studies have shown that these unfortunate trends are reversible by the use of conditional cash transfers

http://www.crin.org/docs/Evaluating%20the%20Imapact%20of%20Cash%20Transfer%20Programs.pdf

I'm not suggesting we need to mirror CCTs here in Ireland, but CCTs demonstrate that it is certainly possible to incentivise and encourage parents who are hesitant to engage their children in education.

For their children's sake, I dislike the attitude that we should just step back and wipe our hands clean of any intervention, lest we be labelled paternalist or Heaven forbid, statists.

If parents cant understand that education is for the benefit of their children on many different levels - then throwing money at them to cadge or bribe them into some half hearted attempt to get their children to school is laughable

All they will see is an extension of a cash cow that can be milked for monetary pirposes only - 'ah sur the kiddies only go to school for the money' - great foundation there altogether to appreciate the value of education :rolleyes:

As other posters point out - not only is education is free for travellers but also finacially supported and as the last poster pointed out there are financial incentives in the system already. What should we do give unlimited expense cards as well? The country is already bankrupt and throwing good money after what is already available is a joke imo, this is simply taking the proverbial...

later12

gizmo555 wrote: »

It sort of already exists here, to a very limited extent, in the form payment of child benefit for children between 16 and 18 years, provided they remain in school.

Given that the precedent is already there, why not extend it to children of all ages? Make child benefit for children of all ages conditional on regular school attendance.

I'd have no problem with that as part of the plan. I do wonder how well a "this is what you could be earning" method works with travellers, given the remarkable ability of many of the poorest in society to discount the future.
After all, we all know the potential income benefits of an education, and evidently the carrot of higher expected future income has failed to waltz travellers into the school system itself.

However, the child benefit scheme you propose is a potential short term gain (not a long term gain like future income), so yes, travellers could see its benefits more tangibly and respond more appropriately.

I would still maintain the deposit scheme in addition, however. I don't think it's safe enough merely to give travellers something to gain, but give them something to physically lose out of their pockets by non-participation too.

gozunda wrote: »

If parents cant understand that education is for the benefit of their children on many different levels - then throwing money at them to cadge or bribe them into some half hearted attempt to get their children to school is laughable

Sorry, but I have already given you an example of where this works via CCTs.

It started in Mexico, where they made it costly for the parents to fail to send their children to school, and parents were not long overcoming their reluctance about education. It has been replicated very well around the world, so I'm not convinced that your assertion (rather without evidence) that it is 'laughable' to incentivise parents is actually valid at all. Evidently, it can work.

Different methods have been used in India (where there is low engagement with education, despite the fact that primary schooling is free,and 95% of children have a school within a half-mile. Clearly 'free education' is not enough for the poor, who may not be fully cognisant of its benefits, or be sceptical that those benefits apply to poor kids as well as rich.

Permabear

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walrusgumble

later12 wrote: »

A very interesting equality analysis based on Census 2006 has emerged recently, entitled Multiple Disadvantage in Ireland.

The pdf. can be viewed on the ESRI website
http://www.esri.ie/UserFiles/publications/MultipleDisadvantageinIreland2011.pdf

The aim of the report was to examine the risk of disadvantage associated with gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community. However, it might be better to restrict ourselves to the issue of the traveller community, as the findings made in relation to that community were particularly stark.

Here are some basic figures that emerged or were cited from other reports.

• Travellers have a lower life expectancy, with the result that only 9 per cent of the Traveller population is over age 50, compared with 28 per cent of white Irish adults.
• Over half of the Traveller population is under age 20 (53 per cent), compared with 28 per cent of the other white Irish population.
• Over eight out of ten Irish Travellers in the 25–44 age group and almost the same number in the 45–64 age group have not completed second- level education.
• 61 per cent of Travellers aged 25 to 44 years and 49 per cent of those aged 45 to 64 years are in the labour market, when we control for their level of education and other factors Travellers are less likely than other white Irish adults to be in the labour market.
• Figures from Census 2006 show that less than 1 per cent of Travellers aged 15 years or over have a third-level qualification
• only a further 4 per cent have completed upper secondary level and 16 per cent have lower secondary qualifications (Nolan and Maître, 2008).

Graphical depiction of the age distribution:



Does anybody else find these statistics frighteningly damning of Irish society and our ability to address travellers' disadvantage?

It seems to me that we are allowing an educational and a social famine to persist amongst a minority group which a large body of the Irish people feel detached from. I would be curious to explore what people think of these statistics, and why we think this is not more of a mainstream political issue?

1. It is completely self imposed. Their form of lifestyle is not possible to retain considering the way our society is today.

2. Society has not ignored them, they have be given educational assistance, they refuse to use it. Many are out of school by 16 years. What can the State do about that?

3. If they ended the feuds, that might ease rise their life expectancy

4. Stop breaking into fights in public places, maybe business people would not treat them as criminals when they enter their premises.

OldNotWIse

walrusgumble wrote: »

1. It is completely self imposed. Their form of lifestyle is not possible to retain considering the way our society is today.

2. Society has not ignored them, they have be given educational assistance, they refuse to use it. Many are out of school by 16 years. What can the State do about that?

3. If they ended the feuds, that might ease rise their life expectancy

4. Stop breaking into fights in public places, maybe business people would not treat them as criminals when they enter their premises.

Some good points. I think it is very telling that a lot of estabishments will not facilitate traveller weddings, communions etc. At times like this when business is bad, they must be a complete liability for business owners to make the choice to turn them away.

nuac

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I have been dealing with travellers for over 40 years and I agree fully with this post.

the ethnic argument is bogus, designed to screw more ouf of the taxpayer.

the legal basis seems be be based on an English case involving a Sikh in an English city

later12

I cannot recall a single argument in this thread whereby someone demanded that travellers be recognized as an ethnic identity.

Has anyone actually demanded this here? It looks like your arguing against an idea that nobody here has put forward.

walrusgumble

OldNotWIse wrote: »

Some good points. I think it is very telling that a lot of estabishments will not facilitate traveller weddings, communions etc. At times like this when business is bad, they must be a complete liability for business owners to make the choice to turn them away.

Not all of them are bad. But, I know people who would only allow a traveller's party etc be booked on their premises at last resort, or, they knew exactly who was coming . Other than that, their attitude is that it would be worth to be down on money than having to answer to the police about a disorderly premises and the clean up that it costs.

If they want to live and behave like animals then they can't expect the local population to treat them anything other than animals.

It is about time that these representative groups cop themselves on and realise that their client's are the problem not the local population

Monty Burnz

later12 wrote: »

I cannot recall a single argument in this thread whereby someone demanded that travellers be recognized as an ethnic identity.

Has anyone actually demanded this here? It looks like your arguing against an idea that nobody here has put forward.

Indeed. He'd have much more success adopting the tactic of repeatedly asking the same question and pretending it had not been repeatedly answered.

nuac

later12 wrote: »

I cannot recall a single argument in this thread whereby someone demanded that travellers be recognized as an ethnic identity.

Has anyone actually demanded this here? It looks like your arguing against an idea that nobody here has put forward.

I have read most of this thread at different times - I think there was a reference to ethnic status

However this ethnic argument is being pushed by their various advocates who have sought ot have igt added to Local Authority 0Traveller Accomodation Plans etc

walrusgumble

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

No different to the "ordinary people" of then (pre 1970 or even 1980) compared with today. Maybe the Travellers go all out visually, but, the bills would not be too far apart.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

More money. Money does not always bring happiness. Money = bad idea if you don't know what to do with it. The same problems could be given for the "ordinary people".

If you can recall Charlie Bird's programme on Padraig Nally for instance, Padraig pointed out that the local travellers back when he was a boy were vastly different. He blamed "social welfare" or free money, as the route to the change of their behaviour. (remember, the ordinary person has also changed with new found wealth)

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Maybe our media then etc were not so self obsessed with questions like "who are we", "what makes us great"? . Probably left that to the playwriters and poets.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Or, for them (and not the traveller) to make a nice market in an ever growing industry . Over indulgence on the notions of individualism . Eager beavers (or eagles) trying out their ability in "revolution" ala America 1960

walrusgumble

nuac wrote: »

I have read most of this thread at different times - I think there was a reference to ethnic status

However this ethnic argument is being pushed by their various advocates who have sought ot have igt added to Local Authority 0Traveller Accomodation Plans etc

Even the Immigration and Integration Councils (many who never stepped near a halting site) get in on the bandwagon, without one iota of a clue as to what they are talking about.

Social Engineering, the way forward?

AlekSmart

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Indeed. He'd have much more success adopting the tactic of repeatedly asking the same question and pretending it had not been repeatedly answered.

Monty Burnz.....are you referring to this question....

Why is Traveller disadvantage not a mainstream concern?

Because it appears that someplace along the line,it grew wings and took flight ?

lividduck

Excellent article in todays irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0407/1224314499129.html

glic71rods46t0

lividduck wrote: »

Excellent article in todays irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0407/1224314499129.html

What is excellent about this article?
Its more of the same from the advocacy groups with cultural concerns on the provision of healthcare! WTF . All men of a certain age seem to be allergic to seeking help on health issues - but these crowd try to make it a cultural issue!!!
Enough of my tax euros spent on pandering to this nonsense.

mikemac1

She says many of the health services on offer aren’t culturally appropriate for Travellers. “And there’s a pride that men wouldn’t want to be seen looking for help.”

She believes the Department of Health should produce a plan of action to improve Traveller health, covering areas such as health checks, eye and hearing tests and mental heath supports.

Underfunded is a problem. So is wastage of resources.
So is availability throughout the country.
There are many issues with the health service, we have had many threads on it here on boards.

But what is culturally appropriate?

Do we need to setup a separate scheme with staff dedicated only to the traveller population?

Who else gets this special treatment?

Ok, a lobby group is there to lobby and they want to be proud and that's great

“When you have respect for yourself, others should have respect for you.

But if you want to be the same why do they demand and lobby for extra services that nobody else gets?

And realy not asking for medical help is not confined to traveller men, that goes for many men in this country. Certainly not just a traveller issue