Mr. Patrick McDonagh:

I thank the committee for the invitation. I am a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin and I am also a Traveller.

I believe that education is one of the major problems facing the Traveller community and the most pressing one in many ways, at least from my perspective. Only 1% of Travellers have a third level qualification. This is quite a bleak statistic that needs to be addressed and changed. The existence of this special Oireachtas committee is a positive sign and one that I hope can help bring positive change to the community.

As I mentioned in my written submission, there are many issues facing Traveller participation in education at all levels. These include cost, unfamiliarity, discrimination and fear. I have also suggested some provisional potential solutions to these issues, particularly the creation of Traveller scholarships and a deliberate policy of focusing on Traveller children in late primary and early secondary school. When I refer to education I do not mean only my own route through to a university education but education in the broad sense of further education courses and apprenticeships, as well as universities. It would be a mistake to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. This extends beyond the Traveller community to the wider community. Education in all the different areas should be encouraged based on people's interests and skills and what they want to do.

Some of the problems I have outlined in my submission are generational that will only change with time. However, in the case of some of the other problems, if concerted action was taken now, it would create a push to help change. Some of the problems I have outlined are costs and unfamiliarity. Focusing on Traveller children in later primary school and early secondary school and creating scholarships would encourage a greater number of Travellers to continue in education than is currently the case. The ideal hope would be that pursuing policies such as this, at least for a certain period, would help to create a critical mass which would then self-perpetuate. I believe the numbers doing so are currently too small and they are more of an anomaly so the position is not sustainable. We will see a real change in Travellers' educational attainments if action is taken now rather than pushing the issue down the road.