Conversations varied slightly depending on the role of the interviewee, but covered topics regarding the situation before the pandemic, the impact of the pandemic in the community and on the work of the organisation, cooperation between stakeholders, actions taken by organisations during the pandemic, long term impacts, levels of discrimination and recognition of Travellers in Irish society. [...] It included representatives of the Prison Service, government departments, the HSE and the voluntary sector (Department of Health, 2020a) and had the capacity to bring the security and safety of minorities into consideration at the national level of the response. [...] The provision of basic needs marked a recognition that the situation of Travellers at the onset of the pandemic was not conducive to the aims of the social solidarity response set out by the Action Plan and showed increased responsiveness of local and national authorities and the public health services to issues and concerns raised by Traveller organisations and representatives. [...] The framing and the mechanisms activated by the National Action Plan for Covid-19 and the swift and robust activation of a country-wide Traveller health infrastructure meant that the initial and direct impacts of the virus were in many ways unexpected. [...] The struggle of Travellers to activate government responses, contrasted with the swift provision of support in the context of this wider crisis, indicates that the human rights and basic needs of this minority community did not concern the majority and were not effectively included in agenda-setting and decision-making before the virus tied the fate of each individual, regardless of ethnicity, fir.
- Pages
- 34
- Published in
- Germany
