Electricity and water: 'we'd be happy with that'

Halting sites without electricity and basic water facilities. Rival Traveller families at one another's throats. Illegal dumps on Travellers' doorsteps. James Byrne visited Traveller homes on the outskirts of Dublin city to see for himself if things were as bad as he had heard. Pictures by Derek Speirs

TravAct is located at the back-end of a sprawling housing estate just off the M50 motorway in north Dublin. Outside, the laughter and shouting of the local children gives way intermittently to the thunderous drone of passenger jets making their way to and from nearby Dublin airport. The scene is typical of the grey, unimaginative council housing schemes across the city. Generously proportioned speed bumps line the road to deter potential joyriders. Identical three-bedroomed semi-d's scattered carelessly around the maze of streets, distinguishable only by number and perhaps the colour of the front door. Even the street names share the same tiny set of surnames; Clonshaugh Drive, Clonshaugh Heights, Clonshaugh Terrace, Green, Close, Crescent etc. There's nothing unique or special about this place, just another housing scheme hidden away on the outer fringes of a prosperous city. And yet, Brigid Purcell would love to live here, to have the opportunity to bring up her five young children on this estate. Everything is relative...

It's just gone 2 pm on a Monday afternoon when a royal blue Peugeot 306 pulls into the small parking area next to the dark green prefab that houses TravAct – the local Traveller action group. When the car stops, the door opens and a thick-set man with bright red hair emerges from the car, smiles and extends his hand in greeting. The beginnings of a large tattoo of Jesus dying on the cross are visible on his chest, he's wearing a bright gold chain around his neck and a large ring decorated with a horseshoe on his middle finger. David Joyce is a Traveller. He is also a drug counsellor with TravAct and he mediates in disputes between local families. Last week he helped organise a trip to Kerry for 86 Traveller children. As we sit into his car, he apologises for the sand that made it's way back to Dublin from Banna Beach. He's a busy man and hasn't yet had the time to clean the car.

Today, David has agreed to show me around some halting sites so that I can view at first hand the conditions that many Travellers live in. He hopes that some of them will agree to talk, but warns that they are not used to having strangers on their sites and might simply clam up. The first site we visit is Cara Park, just off the M50 motorway north of Coolock. It is a site used by Dublin City Council to place Travellers in tiny bungalows as part of a group housing scheme. Hidden behind the row of miniature Lilliputian houses are four large caravans crammed into a space no larger than the size of a tennis court. A young lady of about 25 holds a baby in her arms, but no one else is around.

Wires stretch from each of the four caravans over the nearby walls and in through the windows of the neighbouring bungalows. "Electricity", explains David. Although portable generators are scattered around the site, these only provide enough electricity to power the lights and maybe a television. The ESB bills are divided out at the end of every month. There are no sewage facilities for the caravans, which means that toilets must be similarly shared. This is fine during the day time, says David, but people don't want to be calling around to their neighbours late at night asking to use the toilet. "They end up pissing out the door half the time", he says with a shrug.

The council and the gardaí don't bother them, but they don't help much either. They won't be provided with electricity or sewage facilities but, as David puts it, "they have the privilege of being left alone". The small patch of land is left to them because no one else wants it. Simple as that.

We drive to the site where David lives, about 200 yards down the road. The entrance appears to lead to a rubbish dump rather than a halting site. A lane weaves its way between mountains of clay deposited along the roadside. Burnt-out garbage is stacked high up on the clay. Shopping trolleys, refrigerators and old car wheels smoulder away amid the debris. Further down the lane the road branches off in two directions, but one entrance has been blocked off with large boulders as a result of a feud that occurred some months back. Two of David's cousins were shot in the row and 22 caravans were moved on as a result. The council has refused to remove the boulders, presumably out of fear that the feuding families would return and cause more havoc.

David says that the council should remove the boulders and let the Travellers use the much-needed space. He says that the mounds of clay at the site entrance were left there by the council to prevent evicted Travellers from returning and setting up camp on the grass verge. However, he admits that the Travellers themselves have to take the blame for much of the mess that is scattered around the site. Although he hasn't witnessed the action himself, he suspects that some Travellers may accept backhanders from truck drivers who use the halting site as an unofficial dumping ground in order to save themselves some time and money. It's cheaper to pay €50 to a Traveller than €150 to the official dump-owners, he explains. What does he think of this practice? "It's wrong, of course it is", he says.

Nestled away in the shadow of all the rubbish is David's bungalow. The contrast between the pretty little house in front of me and its surroundings could not be greater. The gate that leads to the house is adorned with two horseshoes, an old set of Christmas lanterns and carefully sculpted wooden horse figures. The front yard is nicely paved and tidy. There are two small outhouses, one with a large bunk bed "for when the kids get too noisy", and another with a small bathroom. David says that he would prefer to have it indoors but he knows that the Travellers on the unofficial halting sites would love to have this problem.

After a brief look around, we set off once again. Again, there are no traffic lights at the exit to the site but David effortlessly manoeuvres his way through the endless flow of cars and onto the other side of the busy Malahide Road. A few hundred yards further down the road, he indicates to the right and pulls into a narrow clearing that leads into a small half-acre field. Upwards of 20 caravans lie adjacent to one another, like sheep squashed into a pen. A kitchen chair has been placed at the front of one of the larger caravans to prevent it from toppling forward. Three young boys play on their bikes with two or three dogs snapping playfully at their heels. Two men are sitting near a blazing fire, drinking some tea while another group exchange greetings with David before heading off in a large blue van.

I am taken to meet Brigid Purcell – an attractive woman with bleached blonde hair and perhaps slightly over thirty years of age. She's standing outside a small caravan with her young daughter in her arms. She has five children under the age of sixteen and houses all of them in two tiny caravans that lie side-by-side at the back of the site. As with many of the Travellers living in the unofficial sites, Brigid has been waiting on a council house for years, but she never seems to be getting nearer to the top of the list.

She takes me around the site to show me why she can no longer contemplate living there. The first problem is the toilet facilities. The council have provided just two Portaloo cabins to share between the approximately 20 families that live on the site. One of the men points to some bushes and says that's the main toilet over there. There is no hot water to wash the kids, let alone the kitchen utensils. When Brigid wants to give her children a bath, she has to take them to the local leisure centre or her sister's house. Unlike the families living on the first site, there are no settled people living within a stone's throw so borrowing electricity is not an option. Instead, the families are forced to use generators run by petrol. These provide enough energy to turn on a light and power the TV but no more. "Not even enough to run a kettle", sighs Brigid. "The council should give us electricity and [hot] water at the least. Even if there was one big washroom, somewhere you could clean the kids. We would be happy with that."

Come wintertime the problems are multiplied. It's a struggle to try and stay warm. Brigid used battery-powered heaters last winter but they ended up causing dampness and mildew inside the caravan. Outside, the uncemented site becomes covered in muck as soon as the rain starts to fall, making it next to impossible to keep the children in clean clothes. A trip to the local laundrette can cost up to €17: "I can't be paying for that the whole time", she says. Sometimes, when she takes the school uniforms out of the wardrobe on a cold winter's morning they are still stiff and wet from the cold. "I'll go mental if I have to stay here another winter", she says defiantly, her voice quivering with anger.

Her mother, Chrissie Ward, also lives on the site. "We could be worse off", she says, "some places don't even have a Portaloo". Brigid laughs, but Chrissie doesn't. She's deadly serious. Nothing could be worse than the few months she spent living in the Traveller housing scheme up near Belcamp Park. Chrissie had warned against the idea from the outset, but was eventually convinced to move when her daughters found the lure of hot running water and electricity too hard to resist.

Within a couple of months they had decided to leave. Chrissie's nerves were almost shot from the fighting and blackguarding that occurred on an almost nightly basis: "Some of the youngsters are gone wild with drugs and drink", she says by way of explanation. "You'd be ashamed of your life with the carry-on of some of them." One of the men gently warns her not to be saying too much but Chrissie is unrepentant: "I'm only telling the truth. Young people have changed. Some Travellers are not making it any easier for other Travellers to get by." Her voice lowers conspiratorially; "I nearly had a nervous breakdown", she whispers, "I was worn down to a thread".

The cramped conditions of the Traveller housing scheme are one of the main reasons why so many fights break out. "There are too many [Travellers] on top of each other like dogs. They have nowhere to go to cool off. Before, they'd move on [to another spot] and things would be forgotten about. Now, they have a few drinks and the whole thing kicks off again. No sooner has one [feud] died before another starts up again. It's hell on earth. People say there's no hell on earth, but that's what this is." She pauses for a second before fixing me with a questioning stare, "Surely there has to be a heaven too after suffering all that?"

She feels that their concerns mostly fall on deaf ears. Her son was promised a council house but still hasn't been looked after. She's worried about Brigid too. A bit of peace and quiet is all that Chrissie wants but Brigid has kids to look after. The Traveller housing scheme was totally unsuitable for bringing up young children but the council won't listen. "The local authorities have a lot to answer for, turning Travellers against each other by throwing them in on top of one another. The lives of Travellers is not important to some people. One more gone, one more out of the road seems to be their attitude. It's time they started listening to us. They would save themselves a lot of money in the long run by putting people in proper houses."

David drives up and indicates that it's time to go. In the car he explains that all the Travellers want is a fair crack of the whip. He doesn't try and hide from the fact that there is an element of criminality among the local Traveller community, but why tar everyone with the same brush? He tells the story of a local pub owner who knows David well enough to salute him on the street. David, however, is barred from his pub because some Travellers caused trouble there in the past and the owner barred all Travellers. Where is the justice in that? "If you're going to put someone down, do it for a reason, not just because of who they are or where they come from... take each person as you find them."

We're back at the sprawling housing estate. The place looks brighter than it did two hours ago. The houses still look the same on the outside, but as with most things, the true value is on the inside. Hot running water, electricity, flush toilets, regular bin collections, a nice double bed to rest your feet on after a hard days work – things we all take for granted. Maybe next year Brigid McDonagh and her kids can too.p