Mr. Patrick McDonagh:

I thank members for the questions. I was asked whether the scholarship I propose should be national or offered by a particular institution. While it would be great if every university offered a Traveller scholarship, it would work best if it was a national scholarship. It should not matter if I go to Trinity, UCC, NUIG, Maynooth or UL. That is the wrong approach. It should be national programme to which Travellers could apply to cover fees and maintenance. A good point was made about tokenism. Right now, it is easy to put someone like me on a pedestal or to use my example as a stick to beat others. I am quite aware of even my own tokenism. I will probably be the first Traveller awarded a PhD from Trinity and it will be considered in a tokenistic way for quite a long time.

The big step is in primary and secondary education. I have been fortunate in my circumstances in a way that others have not been. I never had a teacher at primary or secondary level who told me I could not do something or that this was not for me. Ms Minnie Connors said her children had been given reduced hours, for example. I never had a reduced hours timetable and that can obviously make a substantial difference. In primary school, I was taken out separately for an hour a day which, in hindsight, was probably related to my background rather than to actual need. In some ways, the major issues come down to teachers themselves and how Travellers are treated in the classroom from a young age. If they feel bullied and are told they are different, they will be less likely to continue.

Education does not need to mean university education. I have proceeded to university but education can include apprenticeships and other careers. Obviously, people should be encouraged to complete primary and secondary education but university is not the be-all and end-all of education. There are other career paths that require other forms of education. This is an issue that does not apply just to Travellers but to the population in general. Education does not purely mean university. It is varied and includes apprenticeship and other forms.