Newly built social homes sitting idle for over 8 months in Wexford

What are you doing to work towards resolution of the Hutch Kinahan feud in your community, the settled community?

A lot of the main protagonists involved in that feud, are serving long jail sentences or will be shortly, and the CAB are taking their assets

Was talking to someone who worked in a charity shop and who quickly learnt that you had to watch the Roma like a hawk. They'd be up to all sorts of distraction tricks and try to lift anything. The women with large coats/ shawls the biggest offenders. A real eye opener for this person. So not surprised to see Gardai don't have a great opinion of them.

Silly example of what you're trying to propose. Giving a wheelchair user a ramp is equivalent to giving an able bodied person steps, that is equal treatment. And that is what they ask for - equal opportunity and equal access.

Giving selected groups access to public housing above & beyond the needs of others is not equality. It's discrimination.

Ignoring the fact that the survey suggests that the issue is that some members of AGS are bigots, how do you see it working that people should be able to express bigoted opinions about other groups in Irish society, and everyone should just take it, while bigots themselves should be exempt from being identified as bigots?

There’s nothing wrong with legitimate criticism of aspects of any culture, there’s a lot wrong with expecting there should be no consequences for doing so. That sort of behaviour is exactly what has led to the current situation Irish society finds itself in now, whereas it is due to the work of people working together has led to travellers being recognised only recently as an ethnic minority who are granted further protection from discrimination in Irish law, while there is still much work to be done in protecting ethnic minorities from the consequences of other peoples bigotry.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable that anyone would expect members of the AGS to do their jobs without letting their prejudices interfere with their professional obligations such as an adherence to the code of ethics of AGS. For anyone who needs a refresher -

https://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Policing_Authority_Code_of_Ethics.pdf/Files/Policing_Authority_Code_of_Ethics.pdf

The problem as always is that ideology and virtue-signalling culture war politics might play well on Twitter, but fall apart almost instantly against the cold hard facts of reality.

Are there good travellers out there? - Sure! Is there a negative view of travellers as a whole? - Yep! But those attitudes are reinforced by the sizeable negative element in that community and said community's refusal to address it, but instead blame the settled community/victims of that negativity

Those are the realities, and all the PC touchy-feely-hug-it-out-victim-narratives in the world won't change that until the traveller community as a whole cleans up its act and makes such behaviour unacceptable.

It's all in the post but I'll give you some examples.

Stop trying to paint themselves as victims, stop trying to shift the blame to others, use their Pavee Point outlet to clearly condemn any incidents that hit the public eye. Work with the Gardai to the fullest extent possible to identify and prosecute offenders, encourage traveller kids to complete school and make the current treatment of traveller girls unacceptable in the community

In short, change must start from within as they have deliberately and conveniently tried to set themselves as an independent part of Irish society (thank you Enda Kenny) in order to shy away from addressing and condemning what would just be considered antisocial and criminal behaviour in any other part of society.

Your attitude on these issues (immigration is the same) always perplexes me if I'm honest. Surely you should not only recognise these things, but be among the strongest advocates for enforcement and reform?

It would be great if they were LET stay in education longer and not sent home at 10AM, check out the link posted earlier.

It's actually comments like yours on threads like this that reinforce those negative attitudes,

Thanks for the reply.

My thinking (and maybe I'm wrong) is that the State shouldn't have to provide travellers with traveller specific accommodation (even if it is the law). The same type of accommodation as everyone else should be good enough for them as it's good enough for us. I'm not saying don't house travellers, absolutely not. But I disagree with the law that says they should get special privileges due to their designation as an ethnic minority. And by special privileges I mean all the extras that they look for such as stables etc. for horses or looking for the extended family to be housed in the same location, provision for extra caravan spaces etc. In my book these all seem like extras that the settled community don't get (and shouldn't get).

There may be no mention of horses in the document you linked to above but there's plenty mention of horses in the document below.

https://www.housingagency.ie/sites/default/files/68.%20Traveller_Specific_Accommodation_Practice%2C_Design_.pdf

Just in case I'm being an eejit, can you explain what's going on in Wexford to me please? I've read the piece you posted and I'm still unclear. Is it a case that the travellers want a different development more in line with what's laid out in the traveller specific accommodation document I linked to and that they fear that if they are housed in these lovely houses, they'll be left in these lovely houses?

Nah I don’t think you’re being an eejit or anything else, media articles are fairly sketchy on the details so I’m only speculating myself too, but the standoff appears to be over the fact that the accommodation being provided is only temporary, not just that it’s unsuitable for the needs of the families involved. and that’s without consideration of the fact that as I alluded to earlier it would cost even more money to try and evict them after they’d been accommodated temporarily and moved in.

I know what you mean by special privileges, but I wouldn’t classify them as special privileges tbh, it’s standard practice that any accommodation provided by local authorities must be suitable for the families needs. There’s nothing prohibits anyone from making demands and engaging in a bit of wishful thinking, it doesn’t mean they’re actually going to get it, but no harm in chancing their arm, or pointing out that the accommodation being provided simply isn’t suitable for their needs. It’s not so long ago we had tenements and bedsits in this country, which I’m glad to see the back of tbh.

It’s the council are wasting enormous amounts of money expecting that they should be able to accommodate people in accommodation which isn’t suitable for their needs, and only then on a temporary basis, in effect disposing themselves of their obligation to provide suitable accommodation. In those circumstances I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect local authorities to stop pissing public funds down the swannee?

That’s not even accounting for the fact that now the council are going to have to pay private security services to monitor the properties to prevent criminal damage or theft of property in properties which are laying idle and unoccupied. Councils all over the country are already sitting like a dog in a manger on idle properties which are being allowed go into a state of disrepair -

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/special-report-4000-properties-owned-by-councils-empty-in-a-housing-crisis-41244351.html

Investment in the provision of suitable accommodation takes a bit of forward planning though, and I’m just not sure local authorities are thinking their decisions through, but it would be cynical of me to suggest that councils aren’t interested in recognising that travellers are an ethnic minority with their own distinct culture. Local authorities really do appear to be operating on the basis that they don’t have to consider the needs of the people they’re receiving public funds to provide suitable accommodation for. As long as they are permitted to continue to operate on that basis, we should expect to see more stories in the media of travellers refusing to move into million euro developments as though they’re being made out to be ungrateful bastards, and it’s not the fault of the local authorities for ploughing ahead without thinking and just expecting people looking to be accommodated should be grateful for what they get, even if it is only temporary.