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Important Traveller Voice Heard on Sustainable Development Goals
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Pavee Point was delighted to attend a stakeholders forum
with the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications to highlight the
need to include Travellers, Roma and other marginalised groups when talking
about Sustainable Development Goals.
Mary Brigid Collins, Co-Ordinator of Pavee Point Primary
Health Care Project spoke at the event. “Travellers
and Roma want to be healthy. We want to live long and happy lives. We want to live lives where we do not die 15 years
less than the general population, or experience 7 times more suicides,” she
said.
“We want to make the right choices for our health -whether
that is to walk, to cycle, to get public transport. Unfortunately, we can’t always
do that, because we live in places that don’t have the right roads, or cycle
lanes, or are polluted from being near motorways and dumps.”
Pavee Point also highlighted some of the areas where
Travellers are left out.
For example, retrofitting and grants are largely unavailable
to Traveller and Roma families due to the type of accommodation that they live
in.
Energy poverty is another issue that is not being addressed
for Travellers, especially thoseliving in trailers. Some Traveller families are
paying €100s a week to heat their home, with no access to fuel allowance, and
burning fossil fuels which is bad for the environment and their health.
“The message today,” said Mary Brigid, “Is that Travellers
want to be involved. The most marginalised and poorest should have a seat at the
table.”
The messages developed as part of this meeting will be
shared across national and local government. They will also be used as part of
the development of Sustainable Development Goals training for civil servants
and local authorities.
For more information on Ireland’s implementation of the 2030
Agenda, please see www.gov.ie/SDGs