SEGREGATION AND HOUSING QUOTAS FOR TRAVELLERS - IRISH GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ON EQUAL STATUS ACT AMENDMENT
Questions sent to ministers on 11 November and 8 December 2020 have not been answered, states Dr Anna Hoare, author of a Shadow Report to the UN Committee on the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2019.
“I wrote to ask Minister Helen McEntee whether a new amendment to the Equal Status Act would make housing quotas for Travellers and ‘designated Traveller houses’ unlawful. My letter was passed for a response to Minister Roderic O'Gorman, but to date I’ve received no answer or acknowledgement from him. It raises further questions when a qualified lawyer is either unwilling or unable to explain the effect of a three line amendment on behalf of the government of which he is a member."
“I believe the amendment made in October 2020 is incompatible with the Equal Status Act as it currently exists. Adding a nice-sounding statement about the state’s international obligations to a provision that is fundamentally in breach of international law does not make that provision any more legal. I believe the amendment was made because the CERD Shadow Report accurately pointed out an egregious breach of fundamental rights."
Dr Hoare states: “The amendment to Section 6 of the Equal Status Act suggests that treating Travellers 'differently' in respect of housing could be compatible with the state’s obligations under treaties and acts governing the European Community. I fail to see how this could be the case. My letter refers to the Lisbon Treaty which contains the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Article 21 makes it clear that discrimination on the grounds of inter alia, sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, or membership of a national minority shall be prohibited.
“I asked Minister of Justice Helen McEntee how ‘different treatment’ of Travellers in relation to standard housing provision could constitute anything other than discrimination, bearing in mind that this exemption from equal treatment must be read in conjunction with Section 22 (5) of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act.”
Dr Hoare’s report, submitted to the CERD Committee’s examination of Ireland in 2019, condemned quotas and segregation in local authority housing which have been in place since the 1970s and even earlier. Examples contained in the Report included:
a young woman who had grown up in a house being forced into an ‘emergency site’ to live in a trailer with her family, in order to register for a house or flat;
a family compelled to accept a house with collapsed ceilings and leaking pipes, where excrement, garbage and the corpse of a dog had been thrown into the back yard, because it was the only ‘designated Traveller house’ on the estate;
a mother and daughter offered private rented accommodation on an estate after being told by a housing officer: ‘I could not offer you this house if you were a Traveller’.
The report gave examples of a politician circulating leaflets condemning accommodation plans for Travellers as part of an election platform, and of incitement against housing allocated to Travellers which resulted in a house being destroyed by arson.
Dr Hoare supports calls made since the CERD examination for full incorporation of the CERD Convention into Irish law. “The CERD Committee called for sweeping reforms of Ireland's equality laws. Only by incorporating the CERD Convention into domestic law can citizens invoke their rights before the courts, and challenge blatantly discriminatory laws and practices.”