Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. Our guest speakers are all very welcome; this is a wonderful occasion, which one speaker has called historic, which it really is. I thank Senator Collette Kelleher and the civic engagement group for organising this meeting and being so persistent in pursuing the rights of the Traveller community in this House for the past three years that I have been here.

Political representation in these Houses has been mentioned a lot. It is something we want to support. Having a designated Seanad seat for the Traveller community is an excellent idea, one that has been mentioned before in many different fora. Has how that would come into play been examined? Would it require an overhaul of the entire Seanad electoral system? Would it require a constitutional amendment because it is a feature of the Constitution? It is a constitutional House. Alternatively, is it something that could be done much more simply? I would prefer something that was written in stone rather than being at the whim of a Taoiseach because that post can change.

My second question concerns hate speech legislation. We have struggled for a long time to get around to strengthening our hate speech laws because there is a strong lobby that promotes the idea of free speech, which is understandable, but those who are at the rough end of hate speech are members of very vulnerable groups. The Traveller community are at the rough end of hate speech. There are journalists who write opinions that they would not get away with in any other country but they can write them in this country because of our hate speech laws and there are political parties and representatives within political parties who have made comments that would have landed them in court in any other country.

My questions concern the mechanisms about how we can enshrine that Seanad seat for the Traveller community as a permanent seat in the Houses of the Oireachtas and the witnesses' views on hate speech legislation and how we can turn the tide on the racist views that are given out about many different communities in society, but particularly the Traveller community, without check. Of all the communities with which I, and I am sure, my colleagues, have worked, the Traveller community always comes back to the table with solutions and positivity when often it would be an awful lot easier to walk away from the table and believe that nobody will ever listen. I congratulate the witnesses. I am humbled by their presence and their presentations.