Ms Sinéad Burke:

I thank the Deputies, Senators and the Oireachtas staff for inviting us here this morning.

St. Stephen's Green Trust is a small grant-making foundation. I have been employed as the Traveller enterprise and employment policy officer. To enhance the work that I do, my position is seconded to the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. I am joined this morning by a trustee of the board, Dr. Mary Murphy, who is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology of Maynooth University.

St. Stephen's Green Trust is not a Traveller organisation but it works in solidarity to contribute to improving the situation for Travellers. My role is around contributing to the increased participation of Travellers in employment and enterprise. Another programme of St. Stephen's Green Trust, the Travellers in prison initiative, has previously made a submission to this committee as part of the mental health module.

Information on the other work of the trust and the source of its funds is available in our annual report. In May 2019, St. Stephen's Green Trust published a short report entitled, Mincéir Gruber Malaid Streed: What Next for Traveller Employment? This report has been included as part of our submission. Its objective was to contribute to knowledge on how and why high numbers of Travellers are unemployed, to reflect the policy context and to make some recommendations. As members will no doubt be aware, more than 80% of Travellers are unemployed. In the 2016 census, this equated to 8,541 individuals although many more will be affected. The 2016 census also found that one in eight Travellers was unable to work due to a disability. That is almost three times the rate among the general population.

A major issue with finding solutions to the low level of Traveller participation in the labour market is the invisibility of Travellers in policy and practice. There are no targets for Travellers in the public employment services. None of the agents of the State counts whether it engages Travellers or whether it is successful in moving Travellers into employment. Our report cites examples of Travellers having to hide their identities in employment to avoid racism and discrimination. A 2017 Behaviour and Attitudes survey found that only 17% of the general public said they would employ a Traveller. This can be contrasted with a 2019 SOLAS survey in which more than 60% of employers said that they would employ an ex-prisoner. A 2017 Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission report on workplace discrimination found that the number of Travellers among survey respondents was too low to examine workplace discrimination. The 2018 SOLAS review of pathways to apprenticeships acknowledges the proven links between ethnic and socioeconomic status and access to, and progression in, education. It references Travellers and commits to taking additional practical steps to improve Traveller participation but it does not specify what these steps should be. We are not aware of any progress in this regard.

Other reports reviewed in our research do not mention Travellers or specify targets for service providers. The main Government strategy encouraging access to employment, Pathways to Work 2016-2020, does not mention Travellers, nor does the 2017 action plan for jobless households, the 2018 Action Plan for Jobs, or the 2019 Future Jobs Ireland report. The social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, names Travellers as a target group but does not include targets. Travellers' access to, retention in and progression through SICAP is very low, accounting for just 2% of the total programme caseload for the period from 2015 to 2017.

Barriers to Travellers' access and progress include inadequate public services and discrimination. In some cases, Travellers do not view education as the best route to income generation. Programmes are not designed to take Traveller-specific culture into account. Enablers of the successful design and delivery of programmes for Travellers include leadership and accountability, effective administrative structures, a person-centred approach, and creative and flexible progression measures. Our recommendations with regard to participation include more intentional action by the public employment services and the inclusion of Travellers in the design of solutions. The local employment service, LES, guidance and counselling model, which is grounded in a person-centred approach, is considered to be more appropriate than the current transactional approach in the public employment services, which emphasises deficits in education and skills. A national action plan to mainstream Traveller employment across all facets of the public service should be established with targets set for all relevant agencies. There should be more ambitious targets for Traveller participation and outcomes from supports under SICAP. Cognisance of the particular needs of Travellers should be included in all employment policy, including Future Jobs Ireland, Pathways to Work and implementation of the public sector duty. There is also a need to gender-proof policy in respect of Traveller women. More detail on the rationale for these recommendations is included in our research report. I thank the committee for its time and interest.