Traveller row: Casey tells Varadkar to ‘shut his trap’
PRESIDENTIAL candidate Peter Casey has accused the Taoiseach of unfairly intervening in the election, saying Leo Varadkar should “shut his trap”.
The businessman has withdrawn from public events this weekend “to think carefully about whether to continue in the race”.
He is refusing to back down from his view that Travellers should not be considered an ethnic minority.
Mr Varadkar urged voters to send Mr Casey “a very clear message” at the ballot box.
However, Mr Casey believes it was “totally out of order for the Taoiseach to try impact the presidential election”.
He went on to describe the Taoiseach as “being a member of an ethnic community himself ” and “being Indian”.
Mr Varadkar’s father is Indian – but he was born and raised in Ireland, and has lived here all his life.
THE race to the Áras – particularly the nomination process, often as hilarious as it was perplexing – has been dubbed the “wacky races” because some runners were or are a few cents short of a euro.
By this stage, presidential candidate Peter Casey doesn’t even have a metaphorical euro to his name and will be remembered as the wackiest of them all.
Casey is a successful and very wealthy businessman, a classic example of a resilient, self-made man who fought his way to the top, an exemplar for the young and ambitious that their dreams are achievable.
That is why inflammatory comments about Travellers – who form a minority of less than 1pc of our population – are highly inappropriate for someone who in a position of influence in society.
But let’s face the unpalatable truth: Peter Casey articulated a widely held prejudice that a significant proportion of the settled population share in private.
For a moment, let’s park the issue that this controversy has focused on – the wider implications of the complex and challenging cultural differences that exist between the Traveller and settled communities – and assess the ramifications of Casey’s outspokenness.
Deploying a propaganda strategy chillingly redolent of that preferred by Donald Trump will disturb the majority of Irish people, including the large number who harbour deep prejudices and resentment towards Travellers, some of it justified, more of it not.
It is repugnant to all right-thinking people that a potential president would seek to exploit and deepen the social divide and mutual suspicions between the Traveller and settled communities.
Languishing at the bottom of the polls at 2pc, Peter Casey has gone rummaging around for a lift in the darkest recesses of our collective national psyche – a vote for him now will be perceived as a vote for division and marginalisation.
Bigger than expected support for Casey would be greeted as a vindication for intolerance towards and stereotyping of Travellers, while reinforcing and deepening the sense of marginalisation that already looms over their community.
In the end, no one will benefit, and bridges won’t be built between the Travelling community and the rest of the society.
But if there is anything to be taken from this presidential election storm, it is that it has served to shine a light on an issue that is long overdue, a meaningful societal debate about the relationships between settled folk and Travellers.
Peter Casey facilitated that by pulling at the scab on the wound of Traveller marginalisation that has existed in our society for decades.
Something must be done to bridge the chasm that exists, and it must be constructed with the solutions coming from both sides.
For one, reconciliation can not be achieved between the communities if selfappointed spokespeople for Travellers like actor John Connor continue with illtempered public rants where he smears gardaí as “scum”.
The Travelling community produces some very alarming statistical facts which have been ignored by a largely indifferent and inert State.
The high levels of depression, especially among men, have led to disproportionate numbers of psychological disabilities, drug addiction, alcoholism and suicide.
Such dysfunctionality can be attributed to proportionately high levels of domestic abuse suffered by women within the Travelling community.
Travellers tend to drop out of school earlier, suffer more ill health and die younger.
The optics of bitter family feuds erupting with the use of machetes and shotguns at funerals and the disproportionately high numbers of Travellers who are in prison do little to ameliorate the settled community.
Some of the biggest crime gangs in the country are from Traveller backgrounds, and a considerable number of Travellers have been jailed for burgling homes across rural Ireland.
However, the reality is that, like all communities, there will always be bad elements, but they are always in the minority.
It is facile and lazy to tar all Travellers with the same brush because of the activities of the criminals who are doing more damage to their own people than they are to the wider society.
Perhaps it would be a gesture worthy of a real president of the people if he or she facilitated and headed up a process whereby genuine efforts were made to ameliorate the Traveller community, an ethnic minority, with their neighbours on this island.
Create a dialogue where the Travellers no longer feel marginalised and have the confidence that they are equal citizens – where they will no longer feel like outsiders.
But a huge effort towards a cultural shift must come from the Travelling community itself with an emphasis on education of its young generation as the most effective route to gaining self esteem, confidence and a sense of status in their society.
It would be a worthy gesture to create a process where they feel equal