Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will make a brief comment before finishing. It is important to record that the last committee, under the chairmanship of Deputy David Stanton, did very sound work on this issue. This committee recognises it is important to inject fresh new impetus. We have a new configuration in terms of politics represented in the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is critically important, as some of those who have spoken have indicated, that there has been a big influx of new voices and they are having their chance to be a part of this for the report. We hope it will make the critical difference. The intent is that it will encourage and embolden those who can bring this issue across the line. For me, and I would imagine for all my colleagues on the Joint Committee for Justice and Equality, this past 12 months has been a period during which I have experienced a repeated sense of shame as a citizen - shame over the tragedy of Carrickmines and the fact, as has just been recorded, that it could happen again; shame at the repeated evictions in Dundalk; shame at the closed school doors; and shame at the media which continues to label. There is much to be done and the bringing of Traveller ethnicity into formal recognition would help to address all of that, hopefully in the very near future.

I thank Bernard Joyce, Maria Joyce and Jacinta Brack for their contributions today. They were most illuminating and very helpful. I thank my colleagues on the committee. I invite the witnesses to join us for a photograph which we will append to the report which will go to the Minister, who will see who has come before us and the quality of their contributions.

We will suspend for five minutes and resume with our second session, which will be with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.