Sir, - The term "whataboutery" was coined in the North to describe the syndrome whereby some people responded to every complaint by the other community - no matter how justified - by asking "what about" some earlier grievance, real or imagined, of their own.
Ms Marian Mangaoang of MEAS (September 11th) seems to have a bad dose of whataboutery. A brief reference by me in an earlier letter to prejudice against travellers brought an angry response from Ms Mangaoang: "What is the ICCL doing about the rights of settled people who have to `suffer' travellers camped near them?"
She went on to ask if the ICCL regards travellers as more equal than other people. The answer is no. In fact, we believe that in our society travellers are less equal than others and all the statistics back that up. Infant mortality for travellers is more than twice the national average. Life expectancy is less, unemployment is far higher and educational take-up is far lower. Travellers live at a Third World level in our First World society.
That is why the ICCL believes in the need for anti-discrimination legislation and a programme of positive action to secure an equal standard of living for travellers.
The Report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community recognised the need for 3,100 units of proper accommodation for travellers by the year 2000. We are nowhere near achieving that target and until we are we will have traveller families living by the roadside wherever they can, until they are moved on.
Of course these insanitary roadside camps are unpleasant and unhealthy for nearby settled families, but they are far worse for the traveller families who have to live in them.
The solution is to implement the recommendations of the Task Force on Travellers, not to introduce identity cards, as MEAS suggests. What will they call for next? Yellow stars? - Yours, etc.,
Cochairperson, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2.