From David Riddington.
I AM very happy that there have been no deaths discovered at Haut de Ia Garenne. This doesn’t mean, though, that Lenny Harper was wrong to investigate the possibility. Unfortunately children have been abused and murdered in the past.

So what now for the Jersey Youth Hostel Association? I was very disturbed about an article in New Internationalist magazine (November 2008). At present there are 500 Roma in a refugee camp in Mitrovica, northern Albania, dying of lead poisoning. Nine years have passed since the United Nations housed the Roma, whose homes were destroyed by extremists, on toxic wasteland. Since then 77 have died of lead poisoning, most of them children.

The Roma are occupying an encampment previously used by the French army, who ab-andoned it on medical advice. Their soldiers were recommended not to father any children for nine months due to high lead levels in the blood. What can Jersey do to help? I am privileg-ed to live here. Could this privilege be extended to a few Roma families as well?

Admittedly I would have reservations about staying in a home in which children had been abused. But when you are dying and you have no suitable roof over your head, or a plot of clean land in which to grow food for your family, Haut de la Garenne may appeal. And by the time any final decision is made about the YHA, the old Girls College or Plémont Holiday Village, any of which could be made habitable, more Roma could die.
7 St Clement’s Bay Apartments,
Grève d’Azette,
St Clement.