Residents object to temporary halting site

end of the road wrote: »

the council have done nothing wrong. the only can of worms they would be opening if they continue is sending a message that they can and will use their land. the residents have chopped and changed, if they have been restrained its probably because it will just be more of the usual traveler generalizations they will come out with so are rightly doing themselves a favour and saying little

No the council have done everything wrong. First mistake was to let a temporary halting site fester for the length of time it did.

The second mistake was to try and force through this half baked without proper consultation with the residents of Rockville Drive. Proper consultation does not consist of an hours notice before a bulldozer moves in to clear the land and certainly not an hours notice when most of the residents where away from their homes at work.

There has been no change in the residents reasons for their stance it has been consistent and it mirrors the experiences of an awful lot of contributors to this thread with the traveller community.

Wibbs wrote: »

Again I ask why are people "racist" against Travellers? Where does it spring from? Why them? Why has it become more prevalent not less(unlike many other prejudices that have dialled back over the years)?

because such bigotry hasn't been challenged hard with travelers where as it has been with other groups. it will happen though, give it time

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe in your "leftist" utopia where the government is your daddy and mammy, but if the local authority does get heavy handed with these locals there will be a shítstorm of bad publicity and even more hatred aimed at Travellers. Not exactly a win win for anyone.

no, in reality. if there is to be any more hatred against travelers because the council does its job, it will be because bigots will use it as another excuse to spout their hatred but the media will ridicule and vilify such bigots thankfully

gandalf wrote: »

No the council have done everything wrong. First mistake was to let a temporary halting site fester for the length of time it did.

The second mistake was to try and force through this half baked without proper consultation with the residents of Rockville Drive. Proper consultation does not consist of an hours notice before a bulldozer moves in to clear the land and certainly not an hours notice when most of the residents where away from their homes at work.

There has been no change in the residents reasons for their stance it has been consistent and it mirrors the experiences of an awful lot of contributors to this thread with the traveller community.

the council didn't force through anything and consulted the residents. its the residents problem if they weren't home. the council did nothing wrong here in trying to use its site for the purposes of implementing emergency accommodation

sasta le wrote: »

Travellers want equal status but also want to be an ethnic race.But they demand many different services that we would not get

we are all entitled to the same services if we qualify

Once again end of the road I'll ask you this question.

Hey, end of the road, would you be happy with a halting site beside your house?

Would you feel comfortable with a halting site beside your elderly parent's house or other elderly relatives house (if applicable)?

Does anyone know why the six traveller houses close by Ballyogan Grove weren't rebuilt after being destroyed by fire? Where were those families relocated to?

I'm with the Rockville Drive residents on this one. Halting sites, particularly temporary or unofficial ones are tricky to deal with. Local authorities all over the country have had problems down through the years with them, a particular problem that has surfaced on several occasions in my memory is the refusal of Travellers to move to designated, purpose built sites due to the percieved or real lack of particular facilities or layout, these have in the past included lack of stables and particular families not being allocated the "right" or most desirable bay.

Another issue is the "show-ups" at halting sites, families who arrive at a site with vehicles, caravan(s) and associated and stay, perhaps for a few days or perhaps for a few months straining the capacity of the site beyond it's intended limits.

For these reasons and the real risk of their occurence alone, the Rockville Drive residents are correct to stand their ground in their objections to the temporary site. Lengthy court cases are required to move Travellers on, with associated long appeals.

DLR Council has handled this very poorly right from the start, by not consulting residents and possibly giving false hope to the affected Travellers. They are not alone in this as for decades local authorities and government departments have failed to come up with anything approaching an effective plan to tackle the myriad problems that affect Travellers and in turn negatively affect the wider settled community.

I've known Travellers all my life, I've gone to school with them, worked with them and had pints with them. Many are fine and decent, a disturbing amount are not - I've met both types.

I sympathise with the families and friends of the deceased, I hope they can live with their loss through the support of their own community and the support of the vast majority of the people of this country.

end of the road wrote: »

until bigotry and racism no longer exists, i will call those involved in it out on it wherever i can, at every opportunity. i will not be sorry for doing so. you kept repeating the question, i didn't answer it because the answer is none of your business. that is all i will say in relation to the question. i will not discuss the question further.



i would never be bigoted toards anyone for any reason. you don't even know whether it is "in my back garden" or not, and thats something thats my business.

Thanks very much. Your answer there gives me all the info I want to know about you.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

And again, why shouldn't it also include demographic ethnicity?

Simple: it doesn’t. Travellers are no more an ethnic group than rednecks from the Southern US who live in trailer parks are. Besides there isn’t a whole lot that amounts to “traveller culture” that would set them apart from every other Irish person on this island. No more so than say people who live in South Kerry have certain cultural traits vaguely specific to that region. Travellers are basically a bunch of chavs/bogans/white trash with their own lobby group and plenty of useful idiots on the left to defend their poor life style choices.

That isn't discrimination because it's actually relevant to the job interview.

Says who? Two candidates can have the exact same qualifications, sometimes with the candidate from the “lessor” university having more than the other guy who went to the same select rugby playing school as the guy interviewing him. Life isn’t fair, not for any of us, and travellers have to understand that.

That's profiling and it's unfair to those who do not behave that way but just happen to share some demographic attributes with some people who do.

Again, this is nothing inherently wrong with “profiling” as you call it so long as it’s not based on race or religion. I note you weren’t able to use the term “racial profiling” to support your argument, which is where the real problems lie when it comes to profiling. Even you could stretch your argument that far, instead relying on the vaguely bad version of it: “profiling”

Based on the attitudes expressed in this thread, I would argue that this is exactly what they are at the moment.

Well I’m sorry, but this is delusional. Travellers are not black, any more so than I am. It’s also a despicable insult to real ethnic groups like Africa Americans who have suffered genuine discrimination. It takes some set of mental gymnastics to jump to that conclusion. And there lies the problem with sections of the left these days (and I say that as a center left guy myself). The bleeding heart PC left are our sides equivalent of the Tea Party i.e. a delusional bunch of fanatics, convinced of their own good intentions, and comically out of whack with reality.

The left latching on to the traveller cause is probably the worst misfortune that ever happened to the travellers. For the last 30 odd years, travellers have been told they have all the rights, but none of the responsibilities that a normal citizen of this state has (plus some extra benefits too, like being absolved of the requirement to pay taxes, or respect private property). Not to mention all the state benefits we as tax payers can throw at them.

The result of all of that coddling is now a broken and dysfunctional society. It’s time for the left to quit condescending to travellers, and treat them like normal functional adults. Less treating them like children and more tough love.

They are, but at the moment "being from Achill" is not used to justify discrimination so it isn't worth mentioning. If someone was talking sh!t about a random person from Achill because "I know / have heard stories about people from Achill and they're w@nkers" then I'd have every bit as much of a problem with it as I do with this thread.

Except we’re not talking about a few bad apples here. I can guarantee you that people Achill were engaged in the same levels of criminality and anti-social behavior, then we certainly would be talking about them.

I've agreed with some of what you said, it doesn't change the simple, very basic fact that saying "Some X are Y, therefore it's ok to discriminate against all X because they might be Y" is wrong and I'm pretty sure also illegal.

That’s your interpretation of it. If 85% of X are Y (unemployed) and if X is 10 times more likely to be jailed for criminality in their lifetime than a member of the settled community, then statistically speaking, we have a problem. Therefore the residents are right to object on reasonable grounds to any unruly demographic that can potentially cause havoc in their neighbourhood.

There’s the other side of the coin too. Even if a group of travellers are peaceful and law abiding, their nomadic life style still creates friction with a bunch of settled people living in the 21st century. See the problem is that the traveller life style is designed from the ground up to be in conflict with the settle community. I mean if you spend half the year touring the country in a caravan parking it in random places, you simply have no choice but to disrespect private property rights if you want to live that kind of lifestyle. Same for this group of travellers. Running a business selling cars and scrap metal out of a typical small housing estate was always going to create friction with the residents regardless of how peaceful and law abiding they were.