Travellers "must have ethnic status" in Ireland, says government committee
By DAMIAN LE BAS
Editor
Above: Irish Travellers on their way to Cahirmee Horse Fair, County Cork, in 1954. Source: National Library of Ireland/Wikimedia Commons
THE Irish government may finally be about to recognise Irish Travellers as an ethnic minority after more than four decades of campaigning by Traveller groups.
Last week, the Irish state's Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality recommended that ministers recognise "the ethnicity of the travelling community". It called on either the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) or Minister of Justice to make a statement confirming that it views Irish Travellers as an ethnic group.
Irish Travellers have had legal protection under the United Kingdom's Race Relations Act since 2000, after a landmark legal case looked at the way they were disciminated against in pubs.
Even before this, Irish Travellers were officially a protected group under the Northern Ireland Race Relations Order, and their ethnic status has 'de facto' recognition in the United States, where many have lived for at least 150 years.
Yet one of the ironies of Irish Traveller history is that their ethnic status has never been recognised in the Republic of Ireland itself.
"People justify racism against us by stating we bring it on ourselves," said Brigid Quilligan, director of the Irish Traveller Movement- a network of over 80 Traveller groups across Ireland.
"No matter how many boxes we tick or how much we fulfil our requirements and responsibilities in Irish society, we still experience discrimination and prejudice in every area of life on a daily basis," she told the committee.
Martin Collins is director of the Pavee Point Travellers Centre in Dublin. He said the failure to recognise Traveller ethnicity "has profound implications in terms of legal protection."
"It is questionable whether Travellers are afforded the full protection of the EU race directive," said Mr Collins.
There is evidence that the Irish state's refusal to recognise Traveller ethnicity goes back to policy decisions made in the 1960s.
In 1963, the Commission of Itinerancy recommended that Travellers in Ireland should be "absorbed" into the wider community.
It also stated that Travellers were not a “tribe or separate ethnic group”, in spite of Travellers having their own language, distinct culture and customs, and shared ancestry.
As recently as 2004, the Irish government wrote to the United Nations stating that Irish Travellers ‘do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin’.
David Stanton TD, who is chair of the parliamentary committee which has made the recommendation, said its report will be sent to the Minister of Justice for consideration.