Public hostility to Travellers is worse now than it was 30 years ago, Fr Pat Cogan, head of the Respond voluntary housing association, said yesterday.
He also expressed concern at the low take-up of second-level education among male Travellers. Fr Cogan was speaking at the introduction of Respond's new Traveller accommodation and support policy. Respond has identified Traveller accommodation as one of its priorities for the future and has appointed a Traveller accommodation officer whose sole responsibility will be to work with Travellers and Traveller organisations.
Fr Cogan was a chaplain to Travellers in Ennis in the 1970s and he said that while life for Travellers had improved in many ways since then, it had disimproved in other ways. "Life for the Travellers, though it was difficult at that time, was better than it is now because they didn't suffer, I suppose, as much of the public display of antipathy that is quite evident nowadays," he said.
Fr Cogan said the Traveller and settled communities were "too quick to blame each other" and were not looking realistically at the problems posed by Traveller accommodation programmes.
"There are between 2,000 to 3,000 Travelling families still in inadequate accommodation," Fr Cogan said. Life expectancy of female Travellers was 12 years less than females from the settled community while males died ten years earlier, he said. The take-up of primary education was developing "very well" but second-level education was still very poor, particularly among male Travellers.
Former Olympic boxer Francis Barrett launched Respond's new policy and said he believed the problems faced by Travellers seeking accommodation had improved somewhat in recent years.
