Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McVeigh and Dr. Mac Laughlin for coming to share their considerable expertise on the subject matter of the meeting.

I have been monitoring public discourse on this issue for some time. The delegates may be aware of the situation in County Donegal where, following confirmation that a Traveller family was to be housed in a settled part of the town of Ballyshannon, the response of a number of politicians was pretty much a call for an apartheid-type system in wanting Travellers to be kept apart from and not housed in areas in which settled people lived.

What followed was the burning of the house by persons unknown. All right-thinking people across the State were appalled by the incident. However, there were a number of debates on local radio in the area before the house was burned. One report I followed was on The Journalwebsite which is part of the social media phenomenon of reporting news. I am sorry to report that 90% of the members of the public who rang radio stations or posted on The Journalwebsite supported the politicians' comments. In other words, they supported apartheid against Travellers. Traveller representative groups tell me that the racism they face on the ground has never been worse. Evidently, they face resistance to the fact that there is a distinct, separate Traveller culture and complete ignorance of Traveller history and origins.

I am no expert student of Irish history and I am probably an amateur student like many people, but I know that everyone in the room of Irish origin comes from a nomadic background at some point in his or her history. We evolved from nomads into modernity over hundreds of years to become urbanised and have our little piece of land. I do not disagree with the thesis set out by Dr. Mac Laughlin. I read his book on the subject last Christmas and it is a really important contribution. It reminds the settled community that this is from where we have come. Travellers have stayed loyal to that way of life and part of it for much longer.

What are the delegates' ideas about how we start the process of education? We must twin the debates on ethnicity with a comprehensive education programme in the settled community. We have put programmes in place to support the Traveller community, although there have been huge cutbacks recently which need to stop. We must put the money back in place. How do we educate the settled community to understand this is from where they have come in order to build a bridge? How do we take the many fine writings of the delegates and get them out there?

Are there comparisons to be found? There is empathy among progressive people for Native American culture and Aboriginals who were the nomadic peoples who had their way of life violently uprooted by greed and the idea of manifest destiny. Is there a comparison to be found in that context in terms of resistance to any other way of life among dominant communities? Obviously, it is not directly comparable, but are there lessons to be taken?