Mr. James O'Leary:

I met representatives from the Public Appointments Service in the past when it developed an inclusion and diversity strategy. One of the points I made is that having a generic inclusion and diversity strategy would most likely mean Travellers would be left out again. We have a major blind spot in this regard so there must be targeted initiatives to support the Traveller community. We speak about the Public Appointments Service but we only get these people to the door; it is up to Departments to tell us what they want. The Public Appointments Service does as it is requested by the different Departments. At one point, two Traveller ladies were on an internship with the public service. They were doing extremely well in their work and they got on well with their colleagues. They liked working there and their colleagues liked working with them. It all sounded good. The computer kept saying "No" to them. I suggested to the Public Appointments Service that it was way behind the curve with that computer. Other countries are going further down the road with regard to internships and apprenticeships and the service must open that avenue if it really wants diversity.

We heard a statistic to the effect that only 10% of employers would give Travellers a job. I could be wrong but if we had a targeted initiative, it is most likely there would be more than enough employers to employ Travellers. We need a targeted service to find these numbers. The roles must be researched and people must be pulled out from wherever they are. A targeted service is really important if we are to see progress.