Dunsink Barrier to be removed

The huge concrete barrier erected to block in Travellers in Dunsink Lane in Finglas, North Dublin, as part of a Council campaign to end illegal dumping, is to be dismantled.

Is this a victory for the Travellers? Mick Collins, member of the Traveller community and also of the Dublin based Human Rights Commission, says it is not a victory for one side or another. "It is simply a victory for common sense, for a willingness to consult with people in decisions that affect them."

More than 80 families who live in Dunsink Lane were cut off by the barrier from local amenities — the shops, schools, pubs, medical centres and doctors — by Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council's arbitrary decision to erect this barrier. It was an overbearing use of arbitrary power by the council, without consultation with the local community who use the laneway.

As Dessie Ellis, Dublin City Councillor in the area commented: "Travellers have been driven from pillar to post, left by the wayside, without access to water, electricity, sewage, refuse collection, or conditions for the health and safety of their children. They have been chased from halting grounds, their caravans and families 'arrested', their horses removed and impounded. Travellers have been excluded and discriminated against by councils all over the country, refusing to provide better facilities or even to accommodate them in the area.

"If you treat people with no respect, deny them their rights as human beings, treat them as not worth talking with, as the State has persistently done, then indeed some will inevitably behave individualistically, with little or no regard for the interests, rights and laws of those who have persistently abused them.

"Where people break the law, as people living on the laneway have allegedly done, then, as in other communities, it is the responsibility of the police and courts to deal with the problem. It is blatant racism to punish the whole community — to imprison a whole community behind a wall — as if to incarcerate the problem."