Mr. Bernard Joyce:

I will start with the Yellow Flag programme. Our closest dealings with the NCCA have been when we sat on the audit committee looking at current practice that would feed into the Minister with regard to the Private Members' Bill on Traveller inclusion in history in the curriculum, the Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill 2018. There was a discussion on the NCCA being somewhat reliant on looking at what is currently available out there and there was nothing. The only route the NCCA could take was through the Yellow Flag programme in terms of the diversity and inclusion programme and we fed that into the audit that was carried out. I understand it is currently with the Minister.

The second question relates to the cuts. Interestingly, at one stage there was, in fact, a national Traveller education strategy but the only major implementation of that was the cuts within it, which were significant. As far as I am aware, there has not been any significant restoration of those cuts, which were up to 85%. I am not aware that there has been any restoration besides, perhaps, the action under the national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy, NTRIS, around the pilot programmes.