Roma and Travellers in Ireland and across the continent are experiencing one of Europe’s greatest human rights scandals, that’s according to Michael O’Flaherty
The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner has written a new book about his experiencing after meeting with people from the Roma and Traveller communities in Ireland, Finland, Greece, North Macedonia and Slovakia.
The Council of Europe says it is a “groundbreaking, first-person account of the human rights crisis facing Roma and Traveller communities”.
In the book, seen by NewsIreland.eu, O’Flaherty describes how he has become haunted by deprivation and discrimination experienced by Roma and Traveller communities.
“From June 2024 and for a full year, I travelled to numerous countries. I was generously welcomed into the lives of many Roma and Traveller women and men, girls and boys. I visited their homes, their neighbourhoods, their settlements and halting sites, and I spoke with Roma and Travellers’ rights defenders who drive change across Europe.
I witnessed living conditions I could compare only to ruins I have seen in war zones or in some of the most impoverished corners of the planet.
I saw life without water. Life without electricity. The deprivation we allow to persist.”
Whilst he describes many good projects and heartening examples of humanity, O’Flaherty also uncovered conditions that he says are totally unacceptable. Including in Ireland.
“In today’s Europe, too many Roma and Travellers continue to face an intolerable plight: that of blatant racism and discrimination, virtually in all areas of life.
Too many live in extreme poverty, segregation and exclusion. And too many of us – who have the responsibility to act – are not doing enough.”
Writing a book is an unusual step for the Human Rights Commissioner who’s role is more often than not to raise current human rights concerns and then move on.
Michael O’Flaherty cannot let this one go.
Visiting the Traveller community in Ireland, he found many of the same concerning issues as elsewhere in Europe: Overcrowding, poor facilities, a lack of educational and employment opportunities.
“We must confront the fact that injustices in our societies concern us all. Today’s prejudice, racism, and discrimination against Roma and Travellers are rooted in centuries of violence and exclusion – a stark exposure of our shared failure.
It is up to each of us, to me and to you, to change all this”, he concludes.