Dr. Robbie McVeigh:

The visibility issue is very complex. My personal opinion is that the situation of Travellers in terms of the broad equality platform is worse in the Six Counties now than it was in the 1990s. That is not particularly related to the legislation. There are many other things happening. One of the dynamics is that the Six Counties was a society that had two main ethnicities and a tiny number of Travellers and Jewish people. It was a society bifurcated between Protestants and Catholics and was almost completely white. That has now changed and part of the change has created a context in which the North should be much better at dealing with ethnicity but is not particularly so. Previously, anyone who was interested in race and ethnicity in the Six Counties would have looked at Travellers because there were no other groups but now there are lots of other groups, which makes it harder for the Traveller voice to be heard. I would also make the same observation about the South. It is a reality that Ireland is becoming a much more complex, multicultural society. The days of 30 years ago, or more, when anti-Traveller racism was the only issue that people addressed when they were talking about the need for intervention are no longer with us. The questions around ethnicity and anti-discrimination in the South are much bigger and more complex now. The lack of visibility is as much to do with that as with negative intervention by Government. Certainly, it is not justified by the legislation in the North but in reality the situation is no better, despite the interventions and that is frightening.

I ask the Deputy to remind me of her question on costs.