Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late but I was elsewhere dealing with educational issues. I must also apologise as I am going to have to leave early for the same reason.

When I was in my office getting my papers, I had the opportunity to listen to Mr. Reilly, and I know Mr. Joyce has been before the Committee on Education and Skills a number of times at meetings instigated by Senator Kelleher, who is certainly a champion of Travellers' rights. We have had hearings on the education of vulnerable groups to find where the gaps are. Most certainly, we were including Travellers as one of those vulnerable groups that need to have extra supports. One of the recommendations we made from those committee hearings was that the teachers for Traveller children should be reinstated because children from Traveller families can fall behind. Some do not and I have had the experience of teaching children from Travelling backgrounds in primary school, but in many cases, that extra help and support is needed.

It strikes me, and the witnesses might comment on it, that young children in the education system need to have confidence to be able to blossom, and that may well help to support their mental health and resilience in terms of dealing with the other challenges they have. When I was a young teacher and young local public representative, the late Brian Lenihan was Minister of State with responsibility for children, and he undertook a special project on Cant and launched it at the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge. This ties in with what Senator Warfield said in terms of celebrating culture and heritage. It was one of the most fascinating and interesting events that I ever attended and I still have the book I was given on that day. It was wonderful to see the children there so proud of their uniqueness and of something they could contribute that the rest of us could not. I remember thinking at the time that if we could bottle this and try to bring it out, life would be so much easier.

Senator Warfield mentioned emotional intelligence and he is absolutely right. We need to have public representatives who are in touch and who are emotionally intelligent, but who also have compassion for the different groups of people we come across. We cannot legislate for middle of the road children or people who have access to a middle-class education.

However, that is what is happening. I feel for the teachers, too. When they come out of college, they are all too often geared towards a certain type of child from a certain type of background. While much has been done in terms of home-school liaisons, more needs to done in respect of vulnerable groups.

I worked with the Special Olympics years ago. Ireland hosted the world games in 2003, and we considered ways of having a legacy programme subsequent to the games that would develop new clubs and give support to young people and their families. We tried to reach out to the Traveller community, but there were no Traveller children in our clubs. That was a failing on our part, but we also found a block to getting Traveller children with disabilities to join. Something has to change. Our guests might comment on those points.