Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter stated to a UN meeting that he is considering giving in to Travellers demands and defining them as an ‘Ethnic Minority’. I think this does not make sense as Travellers have the same Ethnic background as most Irish people but have decided themselves to live in a partly separate style.

Policy needs to be changed to encourage Travellers to have more respect for the Community and their neighbours and to stay in Education longer. The present Multicultural policies create division and separate development like Apartheid did in South Africa. These result in a separate Social Housing list for Travellers and once a house is allocated to a Traveller family it must always be allocated to Travellers in the future.

I think all people should be treated equally and there should only be one housing waiting list thus combining the current separate Traveller and Settled peoples lists.