Senator Eileen Flynn has called for a State apology to Travellers for how they have been treated “underneath the Irish laws and legislations that were put in place to keep us down as a community”.
The Senator, who was appointed by then taoiseach Micheál Martin to represent the Traveller community, told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that “even in 2023” and as a member of the Seanad, she still experienced racism and discrimination.
In the Seanad on Thursday she told of how the previous night a taxi she had taken from St Stephen’s Green had refused to enter a halting site in Ballyfermot where she lives.
She told Morning Ireland that when the taxi driver refused to bring her in, she said she would not pay as he had not brought her to her destination. He said he was going to call gardaí so she called 999 and the operator offered to stay on the line until she got where she wanted to go.
Senator Flynn said she was not naïve and was aware that people in all walks of life had similar experiences, but instances like this happened “once too often” to Travellers.
Take away food delivery companies also sometimes refused to deliver to halting sites, she said, and up to 10 years ago there had been occasions when ambulances refused to do so.
While her Seanad colleagues had expressed their support, “sometimes people just don’t understand”, she said. When asked why Travellers were still being “othered” and treated differently, she said it went back to the origins of the Irish State.
“I think it goes right back to the foundation of the State, the State discrimination under the Itinerant report of 1963 that’s laid out for Travellers. It's shaped how we've been treated in today's world.
“And basically, to be fair, there was no good piece of legislation put in place that would protect minority groups. We are a multicultural country in general, and we should be able to protect all of our people in the country, that includes members of the Traveler community.
“I will say hate crime legislation is coming up before us in the coming weeks and hopefully some of our amendments will be accepted from the Civil Engagement Group. And then I know Minister Joe O'Brien has allocated €1 million to community organisations to be able to tackle racism.
“We have to be able to tackle this, educate people around us. We talk about suicide rates within the Traveller community, obviously there’s going to be high suicide rates when people are constantly rejected, refused from society. Look at our unemployment, our education as people think Travellers are really on the edges of our society and very little is done about it. Nobody's been held to account.
“We should get a state apology really to how Travellers has been treated our whole lives underneath the Irish laws and legislations that were put in place to keep us down as a community”.
