Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be very brief.

There is no point in talking about education for young people if there is discrimination in getting into the job, but it should provide diversity of choice and opportunities. The Civil Service and public service need to operate a quota system. We need to look at the skills of adult Travellers of both sexes and match employment to skills either through employment or self-employment. We have disempowered every type of self-employment a Traveller ever got involved in. Some of it has been conscious disempowering. For example, Travellers in my area used to sell things outside sporting matches and so on. We introduced licences and then refused to grant the licences.

There is one final thing I have a problem with. In the old days individuals were simply appointed to State boards and one could say that that was abused. However, I do not like the present system because it selects the person who has the best paper qualifications, not who is the best person or who is the best person matched to the board. It is leading to a gentrification of State boards. The PAS looks at CVs and appoints a person who has enough degrees, work experience or whatever. This means the boards no longer do what they were designed to do, which is to represent the totality of society. What is the experience of the witnesses, particularly the Travellers, regarding the chances of getting on a State board?