Attack on traveller community in advance of further budget cuts?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday January 05, 2009 15:44

by Aragon

Disgraceful article by Brenda Power

Given the education cuts to traveller centres in the recent budget which have left the community reeling, this anti-traveller propaganda suggests further cuts in support may be in the offing.

"We saw grubby kids forced to wash in basins of cold water in the open air as their parents protested at the wanton cruelty of local authorities who’d had the cheek to offer them free houses rather than their choice of serviced halting sites where they could keep horses and run businesses. Pitiable as the children were, the adults’ dudgeon at the insulting offer can’t have eased the blood pressure of the thousands of householders facing repossession of homes they struggled to buy.

In fact it would be hard to blame any hard-working, stressed householder for feeling resentment towards those of the traveller men who seemed to do nothing other than drive around the country in convoys of brand-new Hiaces looking for secure locations to beat the tar out of each other in furtherance of their “culture”. But that is precisely why these able-bodied young fellows whose risk of self-destruction is so high are arguably the most in need of pity and firm intervention.

Small wonder so many feel their lives to be terminally desolate and aimless — they are. At least the women have a role: rearing their children and striving, like Julie, to make the best of their lot. But many men have no purpose, make no contribution, entertain no ambition. They’ve been conditioned by the likes of Pavee Point to reach for the word “culture” to stymie critics. But a culture is a positive force. Feuding and brawling, uprooting your family when filth or hostility have made your location untenable, skirting the law to profit from the black economy: these are not uplifting or rewarding pursuits for the human spirit. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/art...5.ece

This RTE Press Office release tacitly acknowledges that a PT 'investigation' had focused on the bare knucle fighting of a minority while at the same time pretending to be a sympathetic investigation. Was it really?

http://www.rte.ie/about/pressreleases/2008/1209/primeti....html