Perception of Travellers must change, says Hanafin

THE ATTITUDE towards Travellers of “as long as they’re not living beside me” must be overcome, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin has said.

Speaking at the launch of a report on communities in Ireland yesterday, Ms Hanafin also warned against making immigrants scapegoats during the recession.

The report, the fourth in a series of social portraits, was prepared by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) for the Office of Social Inclusion. Using figures from the 2006 census, the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions and other sources, it examined in detail the Traveller community, urban and rural disadvantage, migrants and ethnic minorities, and the homeless.

It found that 28 per cent of the 22,435 Travellers in Ireland are housed in temporary housing units. Discrimination experienced by Travellers was a major and persistent concern, the report said, although it was difficult to capture its scale and nature. It also found that almost 70 per cent of Travellers over 15 years had only achieved primary education.

Ms Hanafin said almost 100 per cent of Traveller children transfer to second-level education, but it was “next, nigh or near impossible to get them beyond Junior Certificate”. Only 82 Travellers did the Leaving Cert last year, she said.

“They are always going to be a group that are going to be isolated from the economy, never mind from society, if they don’t have the educational qualifications to enable them to participate in the workforce,” she said.

She said people were aware some Travellers lived in poor conditions and needed to be accommodated, but they did not want such accommodation in their area. This “as long as they’re not living beside me” attitude had to be overcome by local authorities, she said.

The report, written by Brian Nolan of the school of applied social science, UCD and Bertrand Maitre of the ESRI, found 35 per cent of immigrants had been harassed on the street or on public transport, and almost 32 per cent had experienced harassment at work. The report noted there were substantial differences between groups. Black south/central Africans experienced the most discrimination. Ms Hanafin said in a recession, attitudes towards migrant workers changed. Perceptions included “they are all taking our jobs”, or “they are all scamming the welfare”, but this was untrue.

“When you look back in history and you see what has happened when you have economic problems, somebody always becomes the scapegoat, and it is very easy for the vulnerable people to become the scapegoats,” she said. “It is very easy to tar everybody and it is something we need to be very careful with here.”

Disadvantage: by the numbers

THE HOMELESS

87 per cent of homeless people are single; 58 per cent of homeless adults in Dublin are under 40 years of age.

40 per cent of homeless with children in Dublin have been homeless for three years or more.

URBAN/RURAL DISADVANTAGE

21 per cent of the population in rural areas only have a primary education. This compares to 17 per cent in urban areas.

4 per cent of people in rural areas live in consistent poverty compared to 8 per cent of people living in towns with populations over 5,000.

THE TRAVELLER COMMUNITY

70 per cent of Travellers aged 15+ have only a primary education.

24 per cent of Travellers are married by the time they are 24 years old, compared to 2 per cent of the general population.

MIGRANTS/ETHNIC MINORITIES

66 per cent of immigrants come from within the EU.

30 per cent of adult immigrants have a third- level degree compared with 17 per cent of Irish.

67 per cent of immigrants are at work compared with 56 per cent of Irish.