Ms Maria Joyce:

One of the key benefits of recognition, as raised particularly by the Sami people, was to self-esteem and to the value of their culture, ethnicity and way of life within the country they were part of. That self-esteem, particularly for the younger generations, was one of the core fundamentals that they felt as a benefit of recognition. As has been said, everything will not be corrected tomorrow but recognition would mean the inclusion of the Traveller community in anti-racism and inter-cultural initiatives. For example, Travellers were excluded from the integration policies that were developed by the State. Recognition would mean inclusion of the Traveller community in wider human rights legislation, domestic and international, which will start bringing about change. In response to a question that was asked earlier, the mindset in Ireland has to change. We are coming from the policies and mindsets of the 1960s such as the Commission on Itinerancy, which saw the Traveller community as a problem and saw Travellers as needing to be assimilated and corrected. It is not just mindsets because we have seen it reflected in policy after policy of the State with regard to Travellers being in some way at fault for the inequalities and oppression they experience within the Irish State. Recognition would bring changes to the esteem within the community. I am incredibly proud to be a Traveller but younger Travellers in particular are bombarded with negativity from all angles, pretty much most of the time, be it through the media, policing, the Judiciary or through political statements. A combination of the measures will start to move things in a way that they need to be moved. There are some positive policies that have been developed in partnership with the State in trying to address some of those inequalities but one of the key areas in which we fall down is the lack of implementation. When considering the recognition of Traveller ethnicity, the State should be held more to account when there is no implementation of policies that are in place for Travellers to address some of that inequality. A combination of a number of factors are needed to start to address those figures. We see, very strongly, that recognition of Traveller ethnicity is one of those starting points.