Irish travellers excluded essays

Irish travellers excluded essays Irish travellers are a minority group that experience wide-spread racism. Very few settled people want to accept that travellers are a distinct ethnic group with their own traditions and customs. They are seen through the eyes of settled people as problem communities and con-artists, rather than people who have been denied the most basic rights. In this essay I hope to prove that the travelling community do experience wide-spread racism when it comes to health and accommodation and even gaining access to establishments such as pubs and shops. The travelling community of Ireland is currently 0.5% of the population, which is approximately 24,000 people1. These people can be identified as the outsiders of Irish society due to their social structure and economics, which are significantly different from that of society at large. Travellers employment is mainly conducted in the informal sector and so remains largely untaxed, this has lead to travellers being marginalized by many disgruntled taxpayers in the settle community. This is an unfair view given that traveller women and children have always played an economic role in our society, including begging, street trading and fortune telling etc. These are people who pride themselves on their ability to survive in the most difficult of circumstances and to make a living in the most unfavourable of environments. When it comes to the health of travellers, it is proved that their life expectancy is significantly shorter than that of the settled community: the average life expectancy of a male member of the travelling community is 10 12 years less than for settled men2. This is quite a significant number of years. The dwelling quarters that many travellers occupy are a major factor when considering travellers low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates, yet the government has still not dealt with the accommodation crisis. ...