Ms Jacinta Brack:

I am not a legal expert, but part of the problem is that Travellers cannot rely on the Equal Status Act, despite the fact that it takes into account the race directive, which is the transposing law. This is directly because Travellers are not identified and named specifically as an ethnic group. That would have been evident, as Mr. Joyce said earlier, in the Criminal Justice (Aggravation by Prejudice) Bill bring brought before the Dáil. Ironically, when the current legislation, the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, was going through the Houses, it did not include Travellers either, and national Traveller organisations had to lobby for inclusion. The same goes for the Press Council.

To go back to Deputy O'Callaghan's first point, we consider the matter on the basis of the legal benefits, the practical benefits and the symbolic benefits of the wish and desire of Travellers. However, regarding education, Travellers are not currently covered by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, for instance. Therefore, if Travellers were to rely on the Equal Status Act to seek redress for indirect discrimination, they would not be able to rely on the current domestic legislation. We saw this directly in the case we supported, which was taken to the Supreme Court, of a young boy in Tipperary who could not access a place in a secondary school because he could not comply with the father-son rule.

That is a difficulty for Travellers also. There are a number of legal implications but it would mean that Travellers would be automatically included in Bills, which would be a huge benefit in the future.