Let’s not stand by and let the injustice continue against Travellers

LIFE in Ireland can be hard, and the same applies - in different ways and to different degrees - wherever you might go. But the hardness isn’t equivalent for all, and life is a lot harder for Travellers.

If you are a Traveller yourself, you know this from lived experience. If you’re just here on holiday, or are recent immigrants to our shores, I hope you’re enjoying the place, and just believe me on this point. If you’re an Irish non-Traveller, you know of this - but perhaps only in an abstract way, and perhaps without any emotional involvement.

The data are stark. Life expectancy in Ireland is about 78 for men and 82 for women; while among Travellers it is 63 and 71 respectively. When we consider healthy life expectancy, the gap is larger - 17 years. 

And in regard to mental health, three times more Travellers than non-Travellers report inadequate well-being.

In less clinical terms, while Travellers make up approximately 1% of the population, they make up 9% of the homeless. Travellers are 10 times more likely to experience discrimination when looking for work; a fact reflected perhaps in the unemployment data - 68% of Irish women and 80% of Irish men are in work, but the figures for Travellers are 17% and 13% respectively. In 2016, only 167 Irish Travellers held a third level qualification.

I could go on. Add to this the daily social stigma and discrimination - anecdotally, I recently spoke with a college-graduate Traveller who told me of their regular, humiliating episodes of being the only one all of their classmates refused entry to pubs or nightclubs on class night out.

None of this is news - every Irish person has known the general picture for a long time, if not the exact figures. And yet, year after year, election after election, it is ignored or downplayed. It is never a priority. Indeed, some ‘populist’ (and sadly as a result sometimes popular) politicians campaign strongly against improving treatment of Travellers.

This broad indifference is no surprise to psychologists - aside from anything else, it can often be tough to push for a change when a problem doesn’t affect you and could conceivably reduce resources available for other purposes. 

But try seeing it with a price tag involved. 

In the US, several states have established commissions to consider reparations to the Black community for the long-term effects of slavery and ongoing disadvantage. These are now beginning to report, and that of California is among the first in line. They based their recommendation on a lifetime life value of $10 million (for statistical purposes, allocated equally to every year of life); and also consider health harm, imprisonment rates, housing discrimination, and other factors. Their estimated maximum payment to anyone was $1.2 million; San Francisco has estimated $5 million. If implemented, the overall cost in California alone could be $800 billion.

Now consider some back-of-the-envelope calculations here. The average male life expectancy is 78, that of women 82 - so applying the $10 million (converted to approximately €9.1 million – a conservative figure considering Irish and US GDP), Traveller males would be entitled to €1.75 million, and Traveller women to €1.22 million. And these figures are on the basis of life expectancy alone, discounting what we know are the very large levels of negative health, educational, occupational, residential consequences of systemic and societal discrimination against this section of the community. In 2016, the census found 15,377 Traveller males, and 15,610 female- so a total reparations bill of approximately €19.04 billion.

Let’s let that sink in. The damage caused in an almost casual way to a really small section of the population of a very small country is almost €20 billion in years of life lost alone. 

Let’s try to imagine the extent of human suffering into which that figure translates. 

And let’s not forget the fact that this figure derives only from the living, and does not include the tens of thousands of prematurely dead.

Putting a euro figure on the damage caused makes it concrete. Further context - at the median house price in Ireland, this would buy 62,623 houses. At the current cost to councils of having contractors build social housing 3-bed apartments, it would buy 60,125 such units.

I don’t hear any clamour from any quarter for reparations for Travellers, but perhaps steps should be urgently taken to address deprivation and inequality in this country, irrespective of ethnicity? Even €1 billion a year to improve education access, housing opportunities, employment prospects for all disadvantaged people in Ireland would make considerable impact, and would disproportionately benefit the Traveller community in doing so.

Let’s not stand by and allow this injustice endure, as our Republic so often has in our short - and tragically often shameful - history.