Ms Catherine Joyce:

This committee is our voice. We do not have the political voice that is needed to represent the issues affecting our community. The committee members here and those members of other committees that examine Traveller issues are our voice. We are relying on them to project the needs of our community in a positive way and to show the consequences of policy decisions in terms of how they affect our community. When I think of policies, I think of the amount of work that Traveller organisations put into working with the State but we are unequal partners in that relationship. At the local Traveller accommodation consultative committees and other national fora, we are giving information and providing whatever expertise we have but we are not equal partners at the table. It is important that the members of this committee understand that. Unfortunately, any individual in the settled community who has championed our cause at a political level has not been re-elected. In that context, we are not asking individual committee members to stick their heads above the parapet but, as a collective, they have great strength. The committee is able to look at these issues and at the State's responsibility to the Traveller community. Members must take this on from the point of view of the parents and children who suffer at the hands of educators in this country. I always look at my own children now when considering these situations. I never used to do that because I was never one for telling personal stories. However, since becoming a grandmother, I have realised that this is where it is at - the nuts and bolts of it. When one looks at the treatment of one's children and grandchildren, one sees how much wrong is being done to them as individuals. They are members of this society but they do not get treated as such. Traveller children like my children and grandchildren have become the educators of the teachers in schools and of their peers. They have become the educators by default because the State has not done its duty. My children are answering questions that no child should ever have to answer. They are taking on their shoulders the responsibility for and the weight of the entire Traveller community and the wrongs within it. There are some wrongs in our community that we need to tackle internally. We have to challenge some of the stuff that goes on in terms of racism, sexism and the racist views of some Travellers towards other communities. At the end of the day, however, victims are not to blame for State persecution. Unfortunately, in the areas of education and homelessness, it is the policies of the State that have negatively affected us and it is that negative impact that we are trying to undo.