Knock Novena issues

Knock novena initiative moves forward

Áine Ryan

MAYO Traveller Support Group (MTSG) believes the resolution of Traveller parking issues and transient accommodation at the annual Knock Novena may prove beneficial to the area’s tourism industry.
MTSG Co-Ordinator, Ms Mona Munyikwa, told The Mayo News at the weekend that the group was ‘delighted’ about a new initiative aimed at addressing the problems. It was first mooted by Supt Pádraic O’Toole last summer.
The group held its first meeting during December in Knock which included representation from the Gardaí, Mayo County Council, the Knock Area Development Association, MTSG and the clergy. It is set to meet again before the end of January.
According to Supt O’Toole,the idea took-off after the Gardaí and the County Council found they were ‘on parallel tracks’ regarding the issue, which each year achieves national coverage due to unresolved matters over the mass influx of Travellers for the nine-day novena.
“Our hope is that we will find a resolution that will address all the issues raised by all the participating groups,” said Supt O’Toole.
During the 2007 novena a major stand-off developed between Travellers and local residents and business people, protesting at the blocking of their premises by about 30 vans and caravans. However, Supt O’Toole stressed to The Mayo News at the time that there were a lot of misperceptions in the public domain regarding the level of trouble and that in fact it was ‘very little’.
Meanwhile, Ms Munyikwa confirmed that at the group’s first meeting ‘everyone spoke very openly and in a very constructive way’.
“The residents emphasised they did not want to appear antagonistic. We’re meeting again before the end of the month and hope to work towards a suitable solution which will identify a site for the Travellers to park on and manage themselves during the period,” said Ms Munyikwa.  
“The annual novena could be an international attraction rather than an event that is clouded by the controversy over Travellers parking in the area,” she added.
However, some months ago The Mayo News revealed that a seven-year-old commitment to develop two transient halting sites is ‘low-priority’ in the Mayo County Council’s Traveller Accommodation Programmme, which has prioritised accommodation for the county’s indigenous population.
Furthermore, it also emerged, before Christmas, that Fine Gael Cllr Joe Mellett has put a submission to the upcoming Traveller Accommodation Plan calling for the deletion of ‘east Mayo’ and ‘west Mayo’ as specific locations for the transient halting sites in the county. “Why shouldn’t it, [for example], be in south Mayo,” said Cllr Mellett at the time.