Ms Emily Logan:

Three institutions are interested and there will be momentum in the next few months on Traveller ethnicity and the protection of Travellers in Ireland.

One is the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The convention is inextricably linked to ethnicity, therefore most of its provisions relate to ethnicity or look to provide services for the Traveller community on the basis of its ethnicity. There is a bit of confusion. We are being judged by the international community, which accepts our indigenous Traveller community as ethnic.

The second is the European Commission, in regard to the EU race directive. It has already been to Ireland for meetings. Mr. Joyce may have mentioned this at the last session. It has expressed concern about the ongoing mistreatment of the Traveller community. I was contacted by a third person yesterday, Mr. Nils MuiŽnieks. I do not know if committee members know him. He is the Human Rights Commissioner on the Council of Europe, which is the regional human rights institution. It is related to the European Court of Human Rights and includes 47 member states. He specifically wants to do a country visit. He has heard concerns about the treatment of Travellers and Roma in Ireland. His wanting to visit Ireland is an unusual and extraordinary move. International momentum and concern will develop over the next few months. We want to keep that momentum going, as the Chairman said earlier.

Any time we sit before the UN there are ten treaty monitoring bodies. We independently report on Ireland's progress on human rights in front of these UN experts. They always start with a preamble about the wonderful work that happens in Ireland in terms of overseas development, our humanitarian work and our international reputation for human rights. We are asked why we are so talented overseas or internationally, but cannot come to terms with our demonstrably poor past in terms of how we have treated the Traveller community and our respect and dignity for that community as we head into a new phase. Carrickmines shocked all of us to our core. We should use that tragedy as a positive step to move things forward.