Press Releases
............PRESS RELEASE.....2nd MAY 2002............
An estimated 1,500 people marched on the Department of the Environment and Local Government this lunchtime in protest at recent trespass legislation targeted at Travellers.
Among the protestors were Travellers living on the side of the road who have already been threatened by Gardai with the new legislation - even thought he law has not yet been enacted by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Noel Dempsey TD.
Speaking to the crowd were Joanna McMinn from the Women's Council of Ireland, Terry Gallagher from SIPTU and Michael Farrell from the Human Right's Commission.
The rousing rally was spurred on by chants such as 'Accommodation Not Incarceration', 'Traveller Rights are Human Rights', 'Sites Not Persecution' and 'Travellers Take the Fall so Politicians Can Get into the D?il'.
Recent legislation criminalizes trespass on public or private property. The new law means Travellers are doomed to be constantly moved on - given the Government's failure to provide Traveller halting sites. And the law is a direct attack on the nomadic aspect of Traveller culture.
The 1,207 Traveller families living on the roadside and awaiting accommodation now face a month in jail, a fine and the confiscation of their homes if they don't move on. But where do they move to?
Today's protest called for the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Noel Dempsey not to sign the commencement order for this unjust legislation.
ENDS.