Ms Shirley Comerford:

Thank you, Chairman.

We source candidates for roles in the Civil Service, local authorities and An Garda Síochána and a range of management and specialist roles across the civil and public service. Additionally, we play a key role in identifying members for State boards. In our work sourcing, assessing and delivering candidates to our clients, we are committed to equality of opportunity for all people who wish to pursue a career in the public service.

Despite this commitment, we are all too aware that the level of recruitment and employment of Travellers in the public service is deeply unsatisfactory. The report launched last week cited 80% unemployment of Travellers. In our submission the committee will have seen that for our 2018 temporary clerical officer competition we had just 21 applications from people who identified as being members of the Traveller community. The figures are frankly much too low and unacceptable. It is incumbent on us as a public sector recruiter to extend proactively the hand of outreach, to listen to the challenges and to enable access and participation from Travellers to a much greater extent.

Our first equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, launched last month, identifies three strategic priorities broadly focusing on attaining greater knowledge and understanding of the public sector workforce and recruitment and promotion processes that enable access for diverse candidates and modelling best practice in equality, diversity and inclusion, while collaborating with clients to create inclusive work environments. This strategy is the product of a significant consultation process, including input from representatives from the Traveller community, and provides a framework for addressing key challenges in a systematic and sustainable way.

The public sector equality and human rights duty rightly places an onus on public sector bodies to promote equality, prevent discrimination and protect the human rights of their employees, customers, service users and everyone affected by their policies and plans. I understand and appreciate why a focus on equality, diversity and inclusion is increasingly important against the backdrop of growing diversity in Ireland. We know that a public service that is energised and enriched by the contribution of employees from all sectors of society supports the delivery of a more responsive and inclusive public service. We need to recognise and design workplaces that embrace and celebrate that diversity. As the main recruiters for the Civil Service, this is particularly important for PAS. Inclusive workplace cultures also play a key role in attracting and retaining people from diverse backgrounds, driving business and team performance and supporting collaboration and innovation. We want to collaborate with our partners and colleagues in the civil and public service to ensure that strong, developed, inclusive workplace culture in order that we can be confident when recruiting people from marginalised communities that they are going into enabling environments where they can realise their potential and bring their "whole selves" to work.

There is much to do. There has been good work to date but we acknowledge that we need to do more. The area of diversity and inclusion has seen increased attention and support over recent years, with a greater imperative to address the need to increase visible representation in the public sector and enhanced understanding of the benefits for service provision for all the people of Ireland. Recruiting and employing a diverse public sector workforce that is reflective of the communities it serves is not just a moral imperative; there is also a significant social, political and cultural imperative to have a public sector that mirrors the composition of our society. We also appreciate the positive impact employment has not just for the individual but also for their families and communities. This includes benefits way beyond monetary considerations. For Travellers this goes beyond employment opportunities; it is about having access to and presence and participation in the venues and arenas where discussions, decisions and social policymaking that impact us all take place.

We outlined in our paper some of the work we have done in this space. We have held workshops with Traveller organisations to provide guidance and information on application and recruitment processes. We have advertised employment opportunities in Traveller publications such as the Travellers' Voicemagazine and engaged with Jobs Ireland to ensure people on the live register are aware of our current recruitment activity. We are pleased to support the Department of Justice on its internship for Travellers. In line with the national Traveller and Roma community inclusion strategy, the Department of Justice will this year initiate a one-year work experience programme for members of the Traveller and Roma communities, with roles at clerical and executive officer level. The Public Appointments Service will support participants through the provision of a careers clinic at the latter stage of the programme, with dedicated, tailored sessions covering how best to prepare for different elements of the recruitment process.

Becoming an active partner and sponsoring the Traveller education awards for the first time last year was, I hope, the beginning of a long-standing partnership which will facilitate increased engagement with the Traveller community while allowing us to promote public sector careers.

We have more to learn. Participating on the St. Stephen's Green Trust traveller employment and enterprise policy programme advisory group enhanced our understanding of barriers to employment while working with other relevant stakeholders to develop opportunities to increase access. Its report on Travellers in the mainstream labour market gives valuable insights into the experience of Travellers in the workplace. We need to increase our outreach to hear directly from Travellers the challenges they encounter in accessing employment and the difficulties they encounter when they do enter the workplace. We must continually challenge our own thinking, increasing our engagement with Traveller organisations to better understand the perceptions of the public service and the lived experience of recruitment and employment. We will build more relationships, nurturing those already formed. Our new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy places a key emphasis on engagement with under-represented groups and we are eager to continue to expand the scope of our work within this frame.

This will not be a quick fix. I am acutely aware that our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy on its own is a document and that to give effect to and achieve our ambition will take a lot of work. We need a concerted effort, collaborating with key stakeholders across the civil and public service, to bring about sustainable change while being mindful of the need to find ways to accelerate progress. We understand the significant role we have to play as a recruiter while acknowledging that we are one element of the cohesive response that is required.

There is a phrase that is often used in the disability sector, "Nothing about us without us". This is applicable across the entire diversity spectrum. Travellers themselves need to be at the centre of decision-making, policy considerations and legislative development to ensure real change. Our goal as the recruiter for the civil and public service is to enable them to be present in these spheres.

We welcome this opportunity to talk to the committee. This is a really useful forum to invoke self-reflection and critique and to challenge us to think about how we are doing things. We look forward to the committee's views.