Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for all of the work she does. It is acknowledged throughout the Traveller community. Last week, I launched the action plan for increasing Traveller participation in higher education. I mentioned figures earlier but the Chair is right that there is not meaningful inclusion and in asking whether Travellers drop out or get pushed out. It was very interesting that there were six students at the launch who were in higher education. I launched the action plan at that event and I realised that it connected with what these young students were saying. To give the committee an idea of that, the students said they did not even have the confidence to enter third level. They felt excluded and that they were not welcome. They were uncomfortable. They were bullied and experienced the hate speech which the Chair has talked about so much.

They also talked about what could help them. Three or four distinct pieces of information came through. These are included in the action plan. One relates to the transition from secondary school to third level. Some do not come through secondary school but via another path. They talked about the great importance of the access officer in the higher education institutions. They talked about one good adult helping them to get that confidence. That came up on numerous occasions. They talked about having teachers from the Traveller community in the system. This comes under our path 1 funding, which totals €2.7 million over three years. I believe the Chair was talking about the Tobar project earlier.