Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I am reminded that we are here to try to look at solutions. Having listened to the witnesses, I feel at a loss, yet the State expects Travellers to find solutions to the problems they did not create or have control over in terms of discrimination, accommodation and State oppression over many years. We have been tasked with finding solutions.

It reminds me of putting a lot of people in a working class community who have experienced poverty into a room and asking them to figure out how to get out of poverty. We do not put people who have experienced massive privilege in a room and ask them how they will find solutions to sort out their privilege. People who have the least amount of resources and control are expected to change policy and services. Sitting here today as a Senator, I know how difficult it will be to make sure that we do something that is strong and representative enough and can actually create change because nobody wants to have to keep telling their stories for the rest of their lives in the hope that the regurgitation of the discrimination, pain and trauma a person feels will result in something coming of it. That has an effect on mental health.

We see the headline stuff that massively impacts on mental health, namely, accommodation, education, discrimination and exclusion. Anybody who wants to contribute to what I am saying is welcome to do so. My comments are not directed at anyone in particular.

Exclusion between settled people and Travellers is something I have always observed in my community and between students in our classrooms. I always wondered if there was a way to create better solidarity at a very basic community level. Growing up, when I felt State discrimination and exclusion due to my background I still had a strong community to identify with and relate to, and I knew it would have my back. We do not support and back many of the Traveller friends and students living in our communities, and the very first instance of exclusion begins in the classroom with peers and students. I want to know how we begin to challenge the very first point of exclusion of communities within communities.

I try to challenge bias within groups of friends and people I love and respect. I find myself backing away from the conversation because I am always very conscious that I am in a room full of people and if there are Travellers in the room I do not want them to all of a sudden hear a heated debate between someone who is advocating for respect for Travellers and someone in the room who has an awful view which I am trying to fight.

How can we be better allies in classrooms, schools and our communities? When walking through my community I always wondered why I could walk through the whole estate, but not the purpose-built estates where Travellers lived. There was no avenue for me to walk from my house to the shop and be able to pass my Traveller friends in my class and say, “Hello. How are you doing?” In the makeup of the estate we always seemed to be separated. How do we create conversation, awareness and be allies in a safe way for Traveller inclusion on that basic level in our local services, communities and schools?

My next question concerns schools.

I visit a lot of schools and I hear a lot of conversations which teachers have. Recently, a teacher kept speaking of "dealing with the Traveller children". I wondered what she meant by "dealing with". Every student in the classroom is a student but she used this phrase in this case, instead of "teach" or some other such word. She framed the matter as a problem to be dealt with. How can we begin to change that and get to the stage where schools have Traveller or Roma teachers or board members, with whom young Traveller students can identify? How can we educate people to change this? It is awful to have to talk of training people to be human. We should not have to teach people about unconscious bias. People should treat people with respect and should respect other cultures and diversity. Indeed, we should celebrate these things. How can we begin to address the community aspect of discrimination from primary school through to the final school levels? A young child feels exclusion and discrimination from an early stage in the education system. If we address this only towards the end of a child's time in school, we only put plasters on the problem such as with targeted mental health programmes. What do we need to do to prevent high suicide rates, depression and anxiety in the Traveller community?