Today is the first day of Traveller Focus Week. In this detailed critique, Felim O'Rourkechallenges many of the assumptions and principles that have informed official policy on Travellers for several decades, as well as Traveller attitudes
There have been important developments in Traveller policy over the last year. The monitoring committee, which was in charge of Traveller policy, has been replaced by a High Level Officials Group (HLOG) and the Traveller Monitoring Committee has effectively been abolished.
The monitoring committee was dominated by a particular approach to Traveller issues and had a major input from the Traveller organisations. The HLOG has a quite different approach, and is operating without any significant input from the Traveller organisations.
A recent paper from Pavee Point, the organisation that seeks to improve the lot of Travellers, says that "virtually all policy development related to Travellers in the past 20 years has involved a significant input from Travellers" and that the HLOG is "undermining and significantly narrowing the opportunities of national Traveller organisations to influence/contribute to Government policy".
The change in control of Traveller policy has come about as a result of failure in key areas despite the allocation of significant funding by the taxpayer. Among these areas acknowledged in a March 2006 report of the HLOG are unemployment, education and criminality.
The HLOG expressed concern at "reports of violence, intimidation and organised crime (such as drug-dealing and smuggling) involving members of the Traveller community" and even the emergence of "no go areas" as a result of intimidation of State officials.
The Government is now requiring the HLOG and county development boards to co-ordinate Traveller policy at national and local levels. The Government, however, has failed to give a clear overall direction to these bodies in terms of policy objectives.
For most of the past 43 years, government policy on Travellers has had clear and well-defined policy objectives. The Commission on Itinerancy in 1963 was given clear terms of reference. It was asked "to consider what steps might be taken - to promote their absorption into the general community".
The concept of one community with Travellers being absorbed into it and being entitled to a share in all the benefits of that community became unfashionable in the 1970s. The new thinking was based on the understanding that the Traveller community had an equal claim to respect and support from the State as the "settled community".
This thinking came to dominate Traveller policy in the 1980s and received its clearest statement in the report of the task force in 1995. The terms of reference of the task force asked it to "explore ways whereby mutual understanding and respect can be developed between the Travelling community and the settled community". The new thinking replaced the objective of full integration of Travellers into the community with an emphasis on respecting, protecting and resourcing Traveller culture and identity.
The language of the HLOG indicates that it is committed to a pragmatic, as opposed to ideological, approach to policy. However, the HLOG cannot develop an effective Traveller policy without clear direction from Government. Two of the areas which the Government must give a clear direction on are integration and nomadism.
In the 1960s, government policy focused on integration of Travellers. From the 1980s onwards policy focused on preserving Traveller culture and identity. The emphasis on separation in some areas was such that government policy was at least partly focused on preventing integration. Local authorities provided Traveller exclusive accommodation in separate developments and halting sites.
In the 1970s and 1980s Fás had responsibility for training Travellers for employment. The task force criticised Fás for its insensitivity to Traveller culture and recommended that responsibility for the Senior Traveller Training Centres be transferred to the Department of Education.
The situation now is that Fás is responsible for work-focused training for all other groups in Ireland, even recent immigrants, but Travellers have their own separate system.
The booming economy has created full employment and labour shortages. Traveller policy in this area has, however, largely ignored this availability of jobs. Policy documents such as the task force report's focus on discrimination against Travellers and on what is called the "Traveller Economy".
In this thinking, just as settled and Traveller culture are equally valid, so settled and Traveller economies are equally valid. This ignores the fact that the so-called Traveller economy is part of the black economy and may even in some cases involve illegal activities.
The policy on educational provision for Travellers has evolved over the last 40 years. The commission stated that "there should be no great problem in the education of children of the age of seven or under who commence school in the ordinary way; they should be able to take and retain their place in the classes for their age groups".
In practice there were problems with Traveller children taking and retaining their places in age-appropriate classes. These problems led to an emphasis on segregated provision in the 1970s.
The Department of Education issued new guidelines on Traveller Education in 1994 and 2002. These guidelines asserted the right of Traveller children to receive their education in a mainstream school and in an integrated way.
This examination of policies in a number of areas including housing, job training, employment and education indicates confusion and ambiguity on the issue of integration of Travellers into the general community.
The general environment for policy formulation on social integration has changed dramatically over the past few years. The growth of immigrant communities and the challenges that different ethnic, cultural and language communities present has led to clarity on this issue. The Government and virtually all responsible commentators have advocated clear policies of integration.
But if it is desirable that all these new communities should be fully integrated, why should policy continue to be ambiguous about the full integration of Travellers into the general community?
The adoption of integration as a policy objective would bring a focus on employment. The writings of Robert Putnam of Harvard University in the US have shown that work is one on the most important factors promoting social integration. It is therefore not coincidental that the greatest social exclusion that exists in Ireland is among groups with the highest unemployment.
Commentators in Ireland have endlessly discussed the damage that unemployment does to individuals and communities in terms of social exclusion.
However, we rarely hear about the social integration benefits of work. A rational approach to employment policy would reflect both the social exclusion costs of unemployment and the social integration benefits of employment. This would result in an approach which did not allow members of any group to choose to be unemployed for a lifetime.
The other area where there is a need for a clear direction from Government is nomadism.
The Irish Traveller Movement's website states: "Their culture and way of life, of which nomadism is an important factor, distinguishes them from the sedentary [ settled] population".
The overall thrust of the 1963 commission report was to promote the absorption of Travellers into the general community and that this "can be achieved only by a policy of inducing them to leave the road and to settle down".
Nomadism was seen by the Task Force as part of the culture and identity of Travellers and therefore needed respect and resourcing. This objective is particularly clear in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government's Guidelines for accommodating Transient Traveller Families which says that "the guidelines respect the validity of the distinct culture and nomadic identity of the Traveller community and seek to have this aspect of the lives of Travellers properly resourced".
Putman's work on the impact of geographical mobility would suggest that nomadism may be damaging to social integration. This can be examined by looking at the areas of work, education and social behaviour.
There are very few jobs, either in the private or public sector, which are suited to persons with a nomadic lifestyle. Nomadism, by making most forms of employment impossible, contributes to social exclusion.
The Department of Education and Science's most recent survey of Traveller education says that "school personnel reported that Travellers who had a nomadic life-style find it more difficult to integrate fully in education".
The commission devoted a chapter to Criminal Offences and Penalties for Trespass.
The commission concluded that itinerants do not have a "predisposition to crime" but that a "tendency towards petty criminality" was "incidental to their daily life and facilitated by its circumstances". The task force largely ignored the issue of crime and only referred to it briefly in a chapter entitled Relationships between the Traveller and 'Settled' Communities.
In any community, selfish behaviour is restrained by constant human interaction and the development of long-term relationships. Nomadism, by limiting the development of long-term relationships between the nomadic group and the settled community, may undermine these restraints.
Sociologists are agreed that behaviour is affected by the continuity of relationships. Some behavioural sociologists including Ernest Fehr of the University of Zurich, have conducted behavioural games, building on the simple games theories of economics. These games show that the continuity of relationships and the possibility of sanctions significantly affect behaviour.
The lack of continuity of relationships may be partly an explanation for the differing attitudes to private property displayed by settled and Traveller communities.
In 2002 the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act made it a criminal offence for any person to occupy the property of another person without their consent. This change in the law, which was widely welcomed, was described by Traveller organisations as "racist" and an attack on Traveller culture.
The difficulty of punishing socially damaging behaviour may be part of the explanation for the behaviour of some nomadic Traveller families. This behaviour often escapes punishment as the Garda find it difficult to serve summonses or arrest warrants on the persons involved.
In the past Travellers, whose mobility was limited by horse transport, provided services to rural communities and engaged in reciprocal behaviour and normal human interactions which encouraged mutual understanding and a degree of social integration. Social change over the last 40 years has eliminated most of the opportunities for Travellers, whose mobility has increased, to provide traditional services and so has narrowed the opportunities for reciprocal behaviour and normal human interaction.
It is clear that nomadism both weakens the social constraints which discourage criminal behaviour and reduces the likelihood of legal sanctions. Nomadism therefore undermines two of the key restraints on criminal behaviour.
The commission recommended that no compulsion be used to force Travellers to settle but did state that "all efforts directed at improving the lot of itinerants should have as their aim the eventual absorption of the itinerants into the general community".
This would seem to be the correct approach for the future and would involve not resourcing nomadism. The Government should state clearly that the objective of Traveller policy is the full integration of Travellers into the general community.
Nomadism should not be funded because of the damage it does to the possibilities of full integration.
The funds devoted to making nomadism possible should be used to open up new possibilities for Travellers. Everything possible should be done so that Travellers can enjoy an equal "place in the sun" with all other members of the community.
This should confer on Travellers the same rights and opportunities as all other members of the community. And it should impose on them the same responsibilities and obligations as all other members of the community.
Felim O'Rourke is a lecturer in economics at the Institute of Technology in Sligo