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Child Item

Protest in Ballina to prevent traveller family moving in

Glowing

Hi, did anyone see this on the news yesterday?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/well-continue-house-picket-to-prevent-traveller-family-moving-in-say-residents-1472138.html

It made me sick. Talk about out and out discrimination - they're protesting before the family have even moved in. Some of the interviewee's tried to cover up and say that they were protesting at the way the property was bought by the co. co. but it's just pure NIMBY.

Fair enough, protest if they move in and turn the yard into a halting site, but why not give them the benefit of the doubt?

What would you do in their situation?

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Stabshauptmann

The OP made me think poor travelers but read the article. I would be super pissed if Id worked hard all my life to by a house in that area and it got turned into a council estate.

Why on earth didnt the council get them a house at a more affordable price anyway, what a waste of tax payers money. What Im interested in now is was there any connection between the previous owner and the council...

FlutterinBantam

humanji wrote: »

I hope that was being ironic. :pac:

No!! but I'm not going to create a song and dance about it.;)

SheroN

dlofnep wrote: »

LOL @ you pretending to be Lord Moral all of a sudden.

And no - I think every family who moves in should be screened, regardless of their social or economic background. It has nothing to do with them living in social housing or being members of the travelling community. I think everyone has the right to know who they are going to live next to.

Don't try spin this around. You made your bed.

So if I bought a house next to yours, you'd like to see me screened? Who would do the screening? Would it be up to you to say I'm fit to be your neighbour? Or does it relate to people in social housing?

thegills

The Council have tried to move this family for years but the family were adamant that they were not moving; they were offered houses and plots all over the vicinity. You see their settlement was in a nice area near the Marina and local hotel / swimming pool.

But the Council recently approved a multi-million development on the Marina and I would second guess that neither the Council nor the developers would like have seven traveler caravans right at the entrance to this Marina. The locals believe that the Council were paid off by the Marina developers to move the travelers so in effect are facilitating discrimination themselves.

The neighbors only found out last week that the house was bought by the Council and that travelers were moving in, and that the house cost €500k. The same Council have no money to fix the chronic water issues in Ballina nor the sunken paths and mighty potholes.

This traveler family have integrated with the locals and I believe that there has never been an issue but it is really the Council who are the problem.

In addition the family who sold the house are not being hassled by locals.

And for those of you concerned about the waste of tax payers money rumour has it that for years the Council have been paying hundreds each week to the local laundrette and shop to help out this family.

FlutterinBantam

Kess73 wrote: »

To be honest it is not as clear cut as many make it out to be. The family that they are protesting about moving into the house have been living less than a mile from the location for years now.

I drive past it each morning going to work and the place has been wrecked for years, loads of rubbish dumped, things burned out, and after having lived in the area for five years before moving back to Limerick, there was plenty of anti social issues there too.

So the family in question have been given a chance in the area before and have destroyed where they were already and have brought in many other caravans to the spot, so their track record would suggest the same will happen again.

QED.

NFO.

dlofnep

SheroN wrote: »

So if I bought a house next to yours, you'd like to see me screened? Who would do the screening? Would it be up to you to say I'm fit to be your neighbour? Or does it relate to people in social housing?

You would most certainly not be fit to be my neighbour. I'd rather Blackie Connors over the likes of you anyday. I doubt you'd make it into the screening. That high horse of yours wouldn't fit through the door.

So tell us more about "Blackie Connors and Co" and the pretty good chance of trouble that surrounds them.

SheroN

dlofnep wrote: »

You would most certainly not be fit to be my neighbour. I'd rather Blackie Connors over the likes of you anyday. I doubt you'd make it into the screening. That high horse of yours wouldn't fit through the door.

So tell us more about "Blackie Connors and Co" and the pretty good chance of trouble that surrounds them.

I doubt I'd be able to find the idealistic Cloud Cuckoo Land where you live anyway, even were I selected for screening.

Dudess

topper75 wrote: »

There is this game I think you'd like. It's called Russian Roulette. See you take a six gun and put five bullets in the chamber, leaving one empty. You spin and ......

When Pavee Point start giving out compensation packages for house value collapses, then we can talk.

Actually I'd be pretty much devil's advocate when it comes to issues surrounding travellers. Sure, I dealt with some great people who were travellers/former travellers but I'm not gonna deny there are serious problems endemic within traveller society.

dlofnep

SheroN wrote: »

I doubt I'd be able to find the idealistic Cloud Cuckoo Land where you live anyway, even were I selected for screening.

Nice avoidance of the issue at hand.

challengemaster

I think the solution here is, the government buys 465,000€ worth of condoms and gives them to the traveller community. Then if one of them has a kid, its like China - They pay for it. :pac:

Being completly honest, why the hell should everyone else have to work for a living, when people who're too stupid to use family planning, or they have to fill the nice big free vehicles they get, and think that a vagina is a clowncar that lets them fill it. Good to see the tax payers money is going to good use as always.

smellslikeshoes

I'm on the residents side here to be honest. All the people crying discrimination etc. etc. would probably change their mind pretty quick once they have the problems associated with living beside a traveler family. As soon as they move in you are going to have a fall in house prices (if they are decent people or not). According to the article the area is a pretty sought after place and houses are worth a lot of money there, how would you feel to have worked hard in your life to buy a nice house for your family and then find out that its worth 50 grand less than you paid for it because you live next door to a traveler family. And thats ignoring the rubbish/burned out things etc that you can usually expect.

Diceicle

Why should people who contribut nothing and demonstrate no social responsibility be rewarded with a luxury home? Besides which, with a over-sized family of travellers as a neighbour who would really take the chance of purchasing an adjacent property for nearly half a million? Take a look at some of the settled traveller estates. Case and point, the estate off the Kylemore road. It looks like a riot has taken place there! As part of their tax-free earning ability, they clear peoples gardens for a fee, dump the old fridges etc in their estate and the council picks it up free of charge. Nice.

Here's a thought, a group of us squat up in Ballsbridge for a time and we'll get a nice place in the locality. It works both ways I presume.

Oral Slang

Have to agree with protestors on this one.
We bought our first house in a poorer area in Dublin 24. The estate was reasonably new & we had no trouble for the 1st two years that we lived there. Then gradually people started moving up the ladder & selling their houses to developers & the council. The council moved travellers into about 3 houses on our green & nearly every night there was trouble. There seemded to be 2 different families there & used to regularly have huge big punch ups on the green. Tons of them used to come flying into the estate in cars to join in fights. We had also had little kids ****ting in the side passages of our houses, when they only lived a few doors away and loads of times, they appeared with horses which they grazed on the green. It was living hell for a year, until finally we managed to get out. I would have been very broad minded before this having never really experienced them 1st hand, but after living beside them for a year, I'd definitely be protesting if they were housed beside me now. I know some families obviously are fine, but I wouldn't take the risk again I'm afraid!

FlutterinBantam

There's your answer.

Now you can either ignore the facts and continue to live in the land of make believe, or join the rest of us in reality land.

dotsman

When do I get my free luxury house?

Do I have to give up my job first, stop paying taxes, not give a **** about society before I'm eligible?

mumhaabu

Ross_Mahon wrote: »

Where do they get the money? Mysterious people they are...

I'm not overly religious but I know a Catholic priest youngish fella, sound enough and even swears! Anyway he told me in his first parish himself and the older priest were performing a Christening (Baptism) of a Traveller baby and it was running a bit late (so they didn't hang around too long). Anyway they went to the next Church for another baptism only to be confronted by the same family and baby.

The traveller babys are baptised several times and have multiple identities and thus later get multiple Dole and childrens allowance etc. It is common place in the Travelling community and with dole at something like €180/week multiply this by 5 or 6 and they make a comfortable living and never pay an ounce of tax only demand everything for free.

I blame this on the Government as a Baptisimal cert should be counted in the same way as other state issued identity papaers.

Oh BTW I would not want any travellers living next to me especialyl if it was in an upperclass area that I had just paid a fortune to get into. It would decumate house prices which are bad enough and take the whole exclusiveness off the development. The problem here is the Council spending this much money on house for anybody is ludcrious and is definitely a payback from some one in the Council to some private individual whose paths crossed.

No way I'd live next to travellers, roma gypsies or Hippies.

Read up about White Flight in America and you will see the same thing except black people are being avoided and not Travellers. People have the right to choose who they want to live in their community and it is only right we choose not to mix with whoever we see fit.

*Awaits the liberal barrage from the idiototic left.

humanji

And you were going so well until the last paragraph.

tayto909

460,000 euro to house 12 people sounds like a pretty decent deal for the tax payer to me, maybe the protesters want them to squeeze a few more peolpe in?? more value for money like? since they keep saying the have no problem with the travelling community themselves, just the waste of cash by the council.

old boy

my daughter and her partner have 3 kids, he payes tax is on low income 400 lids after tax, no medical card, no rent relief, no council, or do gooders to help them out.

mumhaabu

old boy wrote:

my daughter and her partner have 3 kids, he payes tax is on low income 400 lids after tax, no medical card, no rent relief, no council, or do gooders to help them out.

Welcome to the quasi socialist Ireland we live in! Such monies spent by the council would be better off reducing their tax bill and helping the hard working people and small business owners of this country. We are in recession and yet they dole it out off the money tree.

It was different in the 1980's as they just kept printing Punts you can't do this with the ReichMark *cough* Euro

Stabshauptmann

mumhaabu wrote: »

It was different in the 1980's as they just kept printing Punts you can't do this with the ReichMark *cough* Euro

Please tell me thats sarcasm

thelordofcheese

mumhaabu wrote: »

Oh BTW I would not want any travellers living next to me especialyl if it was in an upperclass area that I had just paid a fortune to get into. It would decumate house prices which are bad enough and take the whole exclusiveness off the development. The problem here is the Council spending this much money on house for anybody is ludcrious and is definitely a payback from some one in the Council to some private individual whose paths crossed.

well, we have our fair share of conspiracy theory nutjobs on AH, but this is probabaly the least insane one i've seen.
That's not to say i think you're talking bollocks.

mumhaabu wrote: »

No way I'd live next to travellers, roma gypsies or Hippies.

Note to self: when I rule the world i'm going to take time out just to dick with people like you and have you relocated to an estate made entirely of travellers, gypsies and hippies.

mumhaabu wrote: »

Read up about White Flight in America and you will see the same thing except black people are being avoided and not Travellers. People have the right to choose who they want to live in their community and it is only right we choose not to mix with whoever we see fit.

White flight is a moronic theory made up by sociologists. Social science being to real science as two plastic cups and some string is to the internet.

Also, you have neither of those rights. I don't know why you think you can dictate where other people live just because you're uncomfortable with people who aren't like you.

Dragan

brianthebard wrote: »

How do people expect travellers to act as productive elements in society if they are treated as sub human all the time, and never given a chance? The worst thing is that even if this family were quite nice, they would still get the same abuse, and there would be no incentive to be nice to their neighbours. And so the cycle continues...

Because the simple fact of it is that the travelling community has a far higher percentage of anti social behaviour than any other section of our society.

Don't get me wrong, i get on very well with travelling folk in general. Two of my best mates is primary school were travellers who had settled just outside our town. However, that does not blind me to the effect that travellers can have on an area.

From the sounds of the story, they are being moved into a home. Now i may or may not agree with homes being handed over to people but i do think they should be given a chance.

However, if they **** up they should be moved on, plain and simple.

In the Sandyford area about a year ago a family of travelers decided to settle in the industrial estate. Now when i am walking from my work to the Luas i am passing piles of rubbish, and i literally mean piles of the stuff. There is an entire section of the path you cannot walk as it is piled high with rubbish. There was a car burned and left there for months.

And nothing is done.

So yes, i can completely understand why people do not like a traveller element in their community. Often times it can seem when trying to apply the basic laws of the land to them, that it is somehow discrimination.

Xcellor

It's a bit sickening when you hear about such hand outs... People work their whole life and at the end almost have a house similar to what these people have got.

Do they have to pay anything towards it? If not why don't they?

The government should let them work on civic projects, perhaps cleaning up the run down areas. Perhaps rebuilding the destroyed neighbourhoods and facilities built for such ones...

25-35 years is the average mortgage term?? Get them out there working 9-5 peeling gum from the streets if needs be. People would be a lot less critical if they were giving something back to society rather than depending on hand out.

SheroN

Xcellor wrote: »

It's a bit sickening when you hear about such hand outs... People work their whole life and at the end almost have a house similar to what these people have got.

Do they have to pay anything towards it? If not why don't they?

The government should let them work on civic projects, perhaps cleaning up the run down areas. Perhaps rebuilding the destroyed neighbourhoods and facilities built for such ones...

25-35 years is the average mortgage term?? Get them out there working 9-5 peeling gum from the streets if needs be. People would be a lot less critical if they were giving something back to society rather than depending on hand out.

I'd be interested to know if any of the people moving in have ever paid tax(even motor tax). I would suspect not.

Dragan

mumhaabu wrote: »

Read up about White Flight in America and you will see the same thing except black people are being avoided and not Travellers. People have the right to choose who they want to live in their community and it is only right we choose not to mix with whoever we see fit.

*Awaits the liberal barrage from the idiototic left.

Would that allow me to choose not to live beside you?

Genuine question by that way. As in, on what grounds can i protest someone living in my area?

Darragh29

brianthebard wrote: »

Lack of opportunities...

Me arse, what more opportunity could you ask for than to be handed a property like this. You can't expect a family in a settled community to have to graft their arse off to buy a house in that community and then allow a family waltz in and get the same for free, this is obviously going to cause a problem.

seamus

Dragan wrote: »

Because the simple fact of it is that the travelling community has a far higher percentage of anti social behaviour than any other section of our society.

And despite that, the travelling community refuse to acknowledge this and believe that it is up to the rest of society to become more tolerant, instead of being the travelling community's responsibility to clean up their image.

This has been going on for years. Since the travelling community changed from being travelling tradesmen (tinkers, knackers and so forth), to just being nomads, they have been consistently going down in the estimation of the rest of society. This hasn't been society's fault. It's the fault of the anti-social element within the travelling community.
It's the exact same as the less desirable areas in Dublin and Limerick and other places around the country. An element of those communities has tarnished it as a place that is dangerous to go and where you're likely to get robbed. We know that not all (in fact a small minority) are the "rogue element", but that doesn't change the fact that they're statistically more dangerous/less civil places.

If you say that you wouldn't like to live in these places or that you'd be afraid to go into them, nobody would tut. In fact, they'd generally agree with you. So why the tutting and screaming when people say that they don't want travellers living beside them? Statistically, travellers are more likely to cause trouble. Simple as.

However, unlike run-down areas, you can't "fix" the travelling community's image by moving out the scumbags and giving it a lick of paint. Only the travelling community can out and exile their rogue element and begin to repair the relationship with the rest of society which the travellers have ****ed up. It's not society's fault that it doesn't have a good relationship with travellers. It's the travellers' own fault, and it's their responsibility to begin fixing that relationship.

Screaming racism and demanding handouts will not do any good for the relationship.

Dudess

Spot on, seamus. Whenever travellers advocacy groups are on Joe Duffy or whatever complaining about the discrimination they experience, they never admit there are problems within their communities which need to be addressed from the inside.

This guy's writings are interesting: http://www.eapn.ie/policy/3146

He argues there are attempts to blame the rest of society for the poor health, high mortality rates, early life expectancy etc among travellers, rather than addressing the reality that much of this is down to the traveller lifestyle.

Lockstep

mumhaabu wrote: »

People have the right to choose who they want to live in their community and it is only right we choose not to mix with whoever we see fit.

*Awaits the liberal barrage from the idiototic left.

No they don't.

You cannot refuse to let a person entry into your community purely because the residents have an idea of what they would deem acceptable. If myself and the neighbours decide we don't want gingers, gays or Frenchmen on the estate, would that be ok to you?

But hey, what do I know, I'm just writing on behalf of the idiotic left.