The next two to three years will be "crucial" for the Travelling community, according to the chairman of the Irish Travellers' Movement. Mr Fintan Farrell said that while the Traveller issue appeared "insurmountable" to some, the most pressing problems affected fewer than 2,000 families - those living on unserviced, unofficial sites by the side of the road - and that it would take relatively small amounts of money to rectify their situation. What was needed most urgently was the political determination on the part of TDs and councillors, to push for accommodation solutions, he said.
"If we don't act on this now, when we have the resources," he said, "the long-term damage could be incredible. There is a proportion of Travellers who are improving their lot, accessing services, training, education, but it is almost impossible to do this if you don't have adequate accommodation."
Unofficial sites have been described as having conditions similar to those in the Third World - no running water, toilets, refuse collections or electricity. The number of families living in such conditions rose between 1998 and 1999 from 1,148 to 1,203.
"My fear is that what could develop is a two-tier Travelling community with the lower tier requiring very desperate, very long-term and very expensive support," said Mr Farrell.
A failure to grasp the opportunity to provide adequate accommodation for the State's estimated 6,500 Travellers living on unofficial sites would be deemed "recklessly short-sighted" in years to come, he added.
More than 24 per cent of Travellers still live on unofficial halting sites such as on the side of the road. This accommodation crisis continues one year after every local authority in the State adopted, as mandated to by the 1998 Housing Act, its Traveller accommodation plan for the next five years.
The 1995 Task Force report on the Travellers had recommended the construction of 3,100 units of accommodation, whether they be halting bays, group housing schemes or transient sites. To date, just 127 units have been provided. Last month, Mr Davey Joyce, accommodation officer with the Irish Traveller Movement, expressed his "extreme concern" at the lack of progress in this area. He said it seemed many local authorities had adopted plans and were "just letting them sit there".
Many fear councillors would not vote in favour of Traveller accommodation in their constituencies (an attitudes survey last year found four out of 10 people would be "annoyed" if an official permanent halting site was established near them). However, Mr Farrell argues that any vote a councillor or TD might lose by voting in favour of Traveller accommodation would be recouped from Travellers and those who supported Travellers' rights. He cites Mr Chris Flood, Fianna Fail TD for Dublin South West, who, he says, is very supportive of Travellers. He also asks those who would vote against the provision of halting sites how such a stance would improve relations between the Travelling and settled communities.
Studies have shown that where good quality halting sites are provided relations between their residents and the local settled community tend to be positive.
There has been, until now, no statistical record or analysis of how Travellers see themselves and their relationship with the "settled" community.
Repeatedly while researching and interviewing for this week's Citizen Traveller series of articles, The Irish Times was told that the first consciousness many Travellers had had of their distinct identity had been a negative one. Name-calling at school, refusal of service in shops, refusal of entrance to discos, being shunned or ignored by "settled" neighbours - these were for some the first indication that they were "different".
REFLECTING on this, many might ask whether it was any wonder that a significant proportion of the Traveller community might be wary of and even angry at the settled community.
Examining the statistics, one might conclude they had good reason to be. Despite 16 years of mobilisation by Traveller organisations and advocacy of their human rights, this State's only indigenous minority remains, in the words of the European Parliament Committee of Inquiry on Racism and Xenophobia, "the single most discriminated against ethnic group".
On every indicator used to measure quality of life, the Travelling community fares badly - in terms of unemployment, poverty, infant mortality, literacy, education, training levels, health status, gender equality, access to credit and housing.
The Travelling community has a life expectancy of about 55 - the same as that achieved by the settled community in the 1940s.
According to Mr Jim O'Brien, one of those interviewed for the series: "There is an awful lot of tragedy and heartbreak in the Travelling community caused by bad health and lack of access to medical care that goes unnoticed by the settled community."
Clearly there is much distrust on each side. However, as the Citizen Traveller campaign itself exemplifies, more contact between the communities is being initiated by the Travelling community than by the settled. And while last year's campaign sought to improve the settled community's image of what the term Traveller meant the determined focus of this year's has been on the community's view of itself, emphasising its artistic culture and affirming this positive aspect of the Traveller way of life.
As if to point up the need for such a campaign, Ms Patricia Reilly, another of those interviewed last week, and who works with young Travellers spoke several times of how many young Travellers felt it would be "easier" to "deny" their Traveller identity. She encourages them to talk about what being a Traveller means to them, stressing the value of the importance attached by Travellers to family and religious life.
Mr Farrell is hopeful the negative self-image many Travellers have may be waning: "More Travellers are less embarrassed about openly saying: `I'm a Traveller'," he says. "Accommodation is a key issue however. The other positive moves can't come, for the whole community, without it."
Series concluded