The decision to omit halting sites from City Hall’s Traveller accommodation plan is an example of “extreme prejudice” and a “denial of Traveller’s cultural rights” which may also be open to legal challenge.
This is the view of the Galway Traveller Movement which is calling on city councillors to reverse their decision to omit the hating sites. The group will also be investigating if a legal challenge can be mounted.
At Monday’s city council meeting, councillors discussed the Draft Traveller Accommodation Programme 2009 - 2013.
As well as proposals for housing, group schemes, and accommodation, the plan also contained controversial proposals for a new halting site on the Ballymoneen Road and another at Ballindooley Cross, Headford Road.
The proposed halting sites had received more than 600 objections and many councillors were opposed to this aspect of the plan. Independent Cllr Donal Lyons said halting sites were a “failed concept” and that residents in Ballymoneen Road were told the area was to have social and affordable housing, not a halting site.
Cllr John Mulholland proposed that the plan go ahead in its entirety with the exception of the halting sites.
This was agreed by a majority of councillors. While this amended plan will accommodate more than 100 Traveller families, the omission of the halting sites has been criticised by the Galway Traveller Movement.
“The decision is a denial of Travellers’ cultural rights and once again highlights the extreme prejudice that exists against the Traveller community,” says Margaret Ó Riada, GTM project co-ordinator.
According to Hannagh McGinley, community development worker with the GTM, the plan as it now stands “effectively ignores the needs of many Traveller families who have been waiting for halting site accommodation for up to eight years”.
She also said the decision marks a return to the “out-dated assimilationist policies” that deny Travellers the right to live in “culturally appropriate accommodation and defy the equality framework that is in place”.
She added: “Travellers in Galway have identified a need for halting sites and this is recognised and provided for in Government legislation.”
