Protest in Galway over councillor’s comments on ‘Traveller culture’

Dozens of people took part in a protest outside the October meeting of Galway City Council on Monday over comments made by Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Crowe about the Traveller community.

The protest was organised by the Galway Traveller Movement who called for Cllr Crowe to be suspended by the Fianna Fáil party and for a full investigation to take place into his comments last month about “Traveller culture”.

The advocacy group has collected more than 170 testimonials from members of the Traveller community about the negative impact they say Cllr Crowe’s comments have had. These testimonials, which were presented to Galway City Council on Monday, include reports of people feeling “degraded” and “dehumanised”.

Nora Corcoran of the Galway Traveller Movement said: “As far as we are concerned, Cllr Crowe needs to be suspended and an investigation needs to take place. He is setting an example for other public representatives to do this and it has to be stopped.

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“When he says things like this, it gives a signal to other people that they can do it too. He’s a public representative, if he says it, it makes it okay for other people. We need an investigation, we need him to be suspended while this investigation is going forward. An apology is not enough.

“These comments would not be tolerated if they were made about any other ethnic group.”

Galway City Council passed an emergency motion on Monday calling for a code of conduct, including an anti-racism protocol, to be drawn up by the local authority over the next 12 months.

The motion, which was put forward by Green Party councillor Niall Murphy, was supported by all members of the local authority, including Cllr Crowe.

Speaking on the motion, Galway City Council CEO Brendan McGrath said that the code of conduct could only be voluntary as the council does not have the authority to introduce a binding resolution on this issue.

Ms Corcoran said: “This code of conduct is damage limitation, it doesn’t solve the issues and the impact that Cllr Crowe’s comments have had. Much more needs to be done.”

Cllr Crowe, who did not speak about the controversy at Monday’s meeting, has previously apologised for his comments saying he regretted making “broad ranging sweeping generalisations” about Travellers.

Speaking about the allocation of housing on Galway Bay FM last month, Cllr Crowe said he was concerned about “vastly different cultures” being accommodated next to each other.

Cllr Crowe said he felt it was unfair on residents to have a Traveller family “foisted on the community without consultation”.

He later said he offered “a sincere genuine apology to all members of the Travelling community” for the comments, describing them as “wrong”.