Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Significant experience exists within the Traveller community. One should not have to go through an education process to have one's experience and skills recognised. That is an extremely interesting point that I never considered. We should definitely think about and look at that. Whoever feels they want to comment can take this question. I was thinking about the public sector and recommendation No. 8 from the Kerry Travellers Health Community Development Project. Ms Quilligan mentioned the public service, voluntary sector, local authorities and such. I think we are all waiting for those sectors to change internally and suddenly care, and it is as if we have to wait for them all not to be racist for Travellers to apply. What suggestions can we make for affirmative action? There have to be employers in this country who do not feel like that. If they were to say that they are quite happy to employ Travellers, then what do Travellers need if they have been out of employment for a long time or have been burnt by negative experiences before? If an employer was not looking at traineeships or apprenticeships but was just employing Travellers in general, I feel that more work has to happen for Travellers to feel comfortable, welcome and valued by their peers. They should not have to wait for their peers to be ready. What supports can the State provide to employers for a Traveller who may have been out of employment or school for a long time, so that he or she can work for three days a week and the other two can be for development? The expectation of going in from nine-to-five might not be enough for a Traveller to be able to feel comfortable, since he or she might want to upskill. How can the State and employers work together to create a more flexible system?

Throughout the austerity period, there was a middle class coup of jobs that ordinarily we in working class communities or the Traveller community would have had the most access to. There is now a system where we are battling a whole other class of people for the jobs that we always obtained. Is there any sort of analysis of the types of jobs, such as recycling or related to horses, that Travellers would ordinarily have done that have been somewhat taken over? People from the private sector were no longer able to get jobs and came in to this, then started to demand that people should have a third level degree to do the job they have done for their entire lives. It pushed out people with that local knowledge and understanding of the communities in which they have grown up, lived, worked and provided services. Ms Carpenter and I worked together nearly a decade ago in the community sector and much has changed in the addiction, community and voluntary sector with regard to the expectations of what a person must have on his or her CV to get a job that he or she has been doing for 20 to 40 years. What can be done at a community development level to push back and battle this? We are guilty of not seeing our job as bringing in people who might need a little bit more investment on the way. They might not be job-ready. No one wants to give up time in their working day to invest in people who are maybe younger and entering the workforce for the first time.

Everyone says, " That is not my job", so people have to come in with a super-ready skills set and if they do not have that, they are not good enough.

I wonder whether we are failing at community development level. The social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, is why we are failing because it is all about job activation. If people are not job-ready, why would anyone invest in the Traveller community in the first place? I do want this to be a PR exercise at that community level and in regard to employers. I never want to see employers or Government bodies, for example, all of a sudden saying they have taken on three Travellers in a Department and then selling it as some sort of "Aren't we great?" exercise. It should not happen quietly but, at the same time, it should not happen in a way that exposes Travellers who are coming into organisations as some sort of charitable exercise. We have a problem in that we have a ruling class in our employment sector who think they know better than the Traveller community and while consultation happens, they say, "We know better, so we will provide this". That came up earlier when someone mentioned that people are ignored when they put the solutions forward. The organisations represented here are putting forward solutions.