Dr. Robbie McVeigh:

It is a great pleasure to be here. I congratulate the committee on prioritising this issue, which is a very important one not only for Travellers but in terms of broader human rights and equality issues in Ireland and beyond. I am very pleased to be here. I have travelled here from Edinburgh and had to wade my way through the tears of travelling Americans. There was not one Trump supporter on that flight. It is interesting times in which we are living.

I spoke at the previous incarnation of this committee in 2013 and we had a broad discussion on some of the substantive issues around what makes Travellers an ethnic group. I am happy to speak on those issues in depth but I will leave it up to members to raise those in the question-and-answer session.

I should put my engagement with this issue in context. I was first asked to address the issue in the context of Northern Ireland by the old Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, which is a pre-peace process body. That gives members an idea of how long I have been engaged in this. I was a young man when I started, so I am hoping that we are moving towards closure on this issue. I engaged with the question as a neutral at that stage. I was asked to address the question of whether Travellers constituted an ethnic minority in Northern Ireland at that time and I found that they did in that context. That recommendation was subsequently adopted by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, which then fell into the Race Relations (Northern (Ireland) Order 1997. It was one of the parts of Travellers being explicitly recognised as a group protected by the race relations order, which ended all the discussion around this issue in the North. From my perspective, it has been a good thing because people have got on with the business of addressing Traveller issues from the point of view of recognising that Travellers were an ethnic group like many other black and minority ethnic groups across Northern Ireland.

Because of having this background, I was asked to be an expert witness in a case in the London County Court that addressed the question of Traveller ethnicity in England and Wales. I addressed the question of whether Travellers constitute an ethnic group and England and Wales and found that they did and that assessment was agreed with by the court there. That was a test case that established that Travellers were an ethnic group in England and Wales. That is my background. The members can see where I am coming from and that I have been engaged in this for a long time, if nothing else.

One aspect I did not address on the last occasion I came here, which is worth addressing now, is the situation in Scotland, which is slightly different. I thought it was useful to include that quote from the Scottish Government in my opening statement. This frames its policy towards Travellers, including Irish Travellers. That quote states: "The Scottish Government recognises Gypsy/Travellers as an ethnic group in its work and encourages others to do likewise." It took a very explicitly proactive, pro-ethnicity position and that now frames what the Scottish Government does in terms of its work with Travellers and around racism and ethnicity. Again, that is an example of proactive intervention.

In total, across those different UK jurisdictions and the North, ethnicity is defined and framed by legislation in England by the court case, in which I was involved as an expert witness, and in Scotland now both by legislation and by Government policy. It is proactively saying that Travellers should be regarded as an ethnic group and that is a positive development. That is the obvious comparator in terms of our nearest neighbours here. It is worthwhile stressing that the core of what makes Travellers an ethnic group in terms of those judgments and policy statements goes back to the Mandla v. Dowell Lee case, which is the definitive test case in the British context of what constitutes an ethnic group.

The two essential characteristics of "ethnicity" are a long-shared history and a group with a cultural tradition of its own. Those are the two elements that would have to be established and we did establish them in terms of getting recognition for Traveller ethnicity in England and Wales, and the North. Those points have been well made over time. We can come back to them in discussion if the committee wishes, but I will not list them at this stage. The essence of the court case was that we had to prove that there was a long-shared history and that Travellers had a cultural tradition of their own.

One of the key points of interest to the judge in the case was the existence of Travellers in the United States. Travellers had emigrated to America before the Famine and they went with language and cultural traditions that were established well before the Famine. If one wanted definitive evidence of a long-shared history, that was it. It was not that it emerged post-Famine. It is clear that Traveller cultural traditions were in place before the 1840s at the latest. That was enough for the judge in the case.

From my perspective, my job is kind of done. I have been working on this for a long time. There is more than enough evidence to support the legal case, which is what I tended to work on. My sense is that the prevarication and resistance in the South of Ireland is more to do with politics than legal or sociological definitions of ethnicity, although I am happy to work through those again if the committee wishes. It is important to recognise that there is a realpolitik aspect to this but that reality has to be addressed if ethnicity is to be recognised.

There are two readings of the situation. One is that a Minister or Government official just thinks that Travellers are not an ethnic group and will keep asserting it. As I stated earlier, there is not much I can say to that except to say that it is not good policy. It is not based in evidence. A huge weight of evidence in support of Traveller ethnicity has been established over the years. I cannot really argue against it, but I do not think it is a sensible way to frame policy.

The second reading seems to be more telling. It is that somehow there would be an enormous cost to the State if Travellers were to be recognised as an ethnic group. My position is that it does not matter. If it is the just or right thing to do, cost should not be the determining factor. Having said that, the cost implications are nothing like what seems to be suggested. The placing of Travellers in an ethnic paradigm provides a minimum level of protection, which is a good thing, and presents us with the correct paradigm to engage with Traveller inequality in a range of ways. However, the cost of locations are not massive. The heavens did not fall in in the North of Ireland after the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order in 1997. As I stated, protection for Travellers was integrated into anti-racist and anti-discrimination work, which was good, but there was no massive cost associated with it. Likewise in England and Wales, after 2000 there has been no massive obvious cost. It seems to me that the notion that there is some huge cost attached is a bit of a red herring. Some would say the implications are minimal. I am happy to address those points, but that is my perspective. We should do it if it is the right thing to do. However, if we do it, it is unlikely to have massive cost implications.

There are two broader points I wish to address. I have worked on the issue for a long time and there comes a point when one wonders why the resistance and what are the implications of the resistance. The first thing I should speak to is what I call "ethnicity denial". This term has begun to enter the wider literature. It is the idea that an ethnic group can be arbitrarily denied its ethnic status without grounding the denial in fact. It is a dangerous principle. In that sense, this is not just a small minor issue in the Irish context, as Ms Crickley made clear in terms of the work of CERD and its analysis of the implications of ethnicity denial in the broader context. The reality, however, is that it is a dangerous thing and not an abstruse academic concept. Ethnicity denial has happened in the past. Most obviously, notably and notoriously, it happened to gypsies or Roma under the Nazi regime. They were classified as a social rather than an ethnic group. A consequence of that classification was that the Roma Holocaust has only really been recognised over the past 20 to 30 years. It took a long time after the end of the Second World War for there to be any recognition of that genocide because people went with the notion that we were dealing with a social rather than an ethnic group. The policy has profound and dangerous implications and Governments that follow it should only do so with the greatest of care. It should not be done arbitrarily. That point bears emphasis in this context.

For all of us, it has been a remarkable year. We have been reflecting on the 100 years since the Proclamation. If we are serious about the project of cherishing the children of the nation equally, there is no question but that we need to recognise difference as a part of the process. It is standard practice in human rights and equality interventions and legislation that recognising difference is a part of ensuring that people become equal or more equal. It is not rocket science. It is now a given that we should do that, but a key part of that in the Irish context is to recognise Traveller ethnicity. If we are serious about trying to make policy and interventions in a context where Travellers are becoming more equal rather than less equal, recognising ethnicity is a key first step in the process. It is not a panacea, but neither will the heavens fall. It will not solve everything, but it is clearly placing Travellers in the correct paradigm for intervention and it is the right thing to do.