Sir. If travellers' children are forced to jive in sub human conditions, it is because their parents choose to live in such conditions.
I live very close to an unauthorised halting site in Galway and for many years I campaigned for travellers' rights to decent hardstand accommodation. But, I have seen hardstands built and left unoccupied while many travelling families live in sub human conditions, by choice, at Hillside.
Perhaps Loretta McVeigh of the Federation of Irish Travellers (April 9th) can explain why.
When I was on the corporations' housing list many years ago and was offered a flat, I took it to get out of the situation I was then in. I didn't have a choice. When, some years later, I was offered a transfer to a house, again I couldn't choose where I was going to live - I was delighted to be offered decent accommodation anywhere.
Yet, it now seems to me that the travellers want it every way. If a hardstand isn't built exactly where they want it, they will just park wherever they bloody well want - and then protest at the conditions in which they are forced to live.
As far as I am aware, all of the families living at Hillside have, been offered alternative accommodation at one time or another be it a flat, house or parking bay in a hardstand. Yet they continue to choose to live with temporary facilities put in place at Hillside. They come and go as they please and refuse to abide by any standards but their own. They drive their English registered vans and cars, often recklessly, through the estate and through the playing fields for a short cut - because it is too much trouble for them to drive, the long way round by the road.
They carry on their business, without any of the constraints imposed on "settled" people and, they have no regard for rules or regulations. They pile up their, scrap on the side of the road and create an eyesore for the local residents. And, in the midst of it all are these shiny chrome trimmed caravans, complete with satellite dishes. Is it so different for travellers in other parts of the country?
And, please don't mention the travellers' "culture" because many of the present day travellers wouldn't know what it was if "it jumped up and bit them.
While there are many children forced to live in sub human conditions and many people in urgent need of accommodation and care services, I don't believe that very many travellers are "forced" to this category. - Yours, etc.,
Castle Park,
Galway.