Gabi Muntean is Roma community worker with Pavee Point. Her work is wide ranging and she brings a lived experience to it. Muntean is from the Roma community and has personally faced the issues that affect many of the people she assists.
Gabi Muntean is Roma community worker with Pavee Point. Her work is wide ranging and she brings a lived experience to it.
Muntean is from the Roma community and has personally faced the issues that affect many of the people she assists.
This was evident in her address to the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection earlier this year, on how the habitual residence condition negatively impacts on Roma in Ireland.
Habitual residence is necessary to access social welfare payments but the term is not defined in Irish law. A number of factors are examined when determining if someone is habitually resident, including length and continuity of resident in Ireland, nature and pattern of employment, main centre of interest and future intentions to live in Ireland.
Immigrant support groups say that applicants who are not defined as habitually resident are vulnerable to extreme poverty. According to Pavee Point, the condition is resulting in serious issues of child poverty and destitution for Roma in Ireland
Muntean told the Dáil committee that it was 11 years before she was regarded as habitually resident, despite living in Ireland with her family and engaging in voluntary work during this time.
“I would like the committee to understand how difficult it was for me,” she said. “My family and I were very insecure because our application was pending. We were not sure if we would be eligible for supplementary welfare allowance from week to week... One week we received no payment and I was terrified. I thought I would be unable to survive in Ireland and I ended up in hospital. It is very hard to go through this experience.
“One of the biggest worries was that I would be refused child benefit. My son was going to school and I could not afford to buy his uniform, his books or his lunch. I have only one child but many Roma families have three, four, five or seven children. Even with one child I find it very difficult to cope. I ask the committee to imagine how difficult it is for larger families with lots of children.”
Muntean also dismissed widespread suggestions in society that begging is part of Roma ‘culture’, emphasising the need for education and training.
“Roma need to be supported to find employment,” she said. “Some Roma are not well educated. They may be illiterate and unable to speak fluent English. These people need to be supported.”
The Roma woman told Metro Éireann that presentations on the Roma and encouraging dialogue about the Roma community in Ireland is a key part of her role as a Roma community worker. She also assists Roma families with particular problems they are facing. In this regard, her training as a cultural mediator through Access Ireland has proven very useful and something she describes as a “very good experience”.
Asked to explain the role of a cultural mediator for those unfamiliar with the concept, she remarked: “I would say we are the bridge. Sometimes people cannot reach to another place – and we are the bridge helping them to go there.
“Sometimes two people cannot get together because the social providers and the family don’t know the process, they don’t know what the barriers are. Sometimes the providers are scared to ask for something: they don’t know if they can or cannot ask. Cultural mediators can break this barrier.”
