TRAVELLERS are not a favoured group in society, who get everything they want, the co chairwoman of the Irish Traveller Movement (ITM) has said. There was a widely held perception that travellers were a favoured group, said Ms Ann Doherty, speaking at a conference yesterday entitled "Moving Forward implementing the report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community".
The findings of the 1986 ESRI report still applied. "The circumstances of the Irish travelling people are intolerable. No humane or decent society, once made aware of such circumstances, could permit them to persist."
Ms Doherty said comprehensive action over the next five years could transform the relationship between members of the settled and traveller communities.
Mr.Fintan Farrell, co-ordinator of the ITM, said traveller participation in the emerging structures was one of the key elements to developing such a society.
The Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal, Ms Liz McManus, confirmed that a traveller accommodation unit has been established within the Department of the Environment.
The target is the creation of 3,100 units of various types of accommodation. There will be a statutory requirement on local authorities to adopt, in consultation with travellers, five year programmes for the provision of suitable accommodation.
Ms McManus said new guidelines on the provision of residential halting sites will be available in the near future.
In his address, the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, said. "There are too many traveller families who feel the lack of the most basic right of any Irish citizen, that is, a roof over their heads and access to decent hygiene, health and education services."
The Employment Equality Bill and equal status legislation would be published this year. For the first time the statute books would contain a specific prohibition of discrimination against travellers entering hotels, restaurants, shops or other public places.
Ms Joan O'Flynn, of the Combat Poverty Agency, said that to acknowledge poverty as an aspect of inequality, the links between the Task Force Report on the Travelling Community, the National Anti Poverty Strategy and the proposed equal status legislation must be discussed.