Ms Liz Fletcher of the Harmony Community Development Project in Athlone has called for facilities at a Travellers' halting site to be upgraded to prevent tension with refugees, due to be housed in mobile homes on a nearby site.
Ms Fletcher believes conditions at the halting site should be upgraded in tandem with the development of the asylum-seekers' site, where up to 100 mobile homes are to be located.
She said a number of Traveller families were living in squalor at the Blackberry Lane halting site on the outskirts of the town. "It is officially a 12-bay halting site but more families have moved in, so there are now 27 families on the site. The extra families have been looking for proper accommodation for 10 to 15 years. Some of them don't even have electricity, running water or sewerage facilities," she said.
"The harsh reality is the site for the refugees should never have been put where it is. It was not fair when they were not going to address Traveller needs before those of the refugees to locate both groups so close together. That was a social injustice straight off.
"But now that it is there they could at least try to rectify the situation by working on both sites simultaneously," Ms Fletcher added.
"The Government should be more responsible in their approach to dealing with situations like this. They should be more sensitive to the Travellers and the conditions they are living in," she said.
"The majority of the Travellers are very open to the fact that refugees are moving in beside them. They feel they couldn't possibly object when they know what it is like to be discriminated against.
"At the same time people must realise how hard it is for them to accept these beautiful three-bedroom mobile homes with flush toilets across the wall from them."
Last week a truck driver with one of the new mobile homes delivered it to the halting site. When the error was realised, gardai had to be called to facilitate its transfer to its intended location.
Ms Fletcher said the fact that work on both sites did not begin at the same time added "fuel to the fire".
Mr Cyril Dully, a member of the local group set up to facilitate the integration of refugees, said nobody was saying the Travellers should not have more or were begrudging the asylum-seekers what they were getting. "It seems finances are not as available to the county council as they are to the Department of Justice at this time," he said.
A five-year programme to meet the existing and projected accommodation needs of Travellers in the county was adopted by Westmeath Council two weeks ago and includes the upgrading of the halting site. Ms Fletcher has called for this work to begin immediately.