Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Jeanne McDonagh, Dr. Frances McGinnity and Ms Shirley Comerford for coming before the committee and giving such thoughtful opening statements. I very much appreciate it. I will start by addressing an issue that relates to the care of children by women or men. Even if it is seen as being a traditional role, that does not mean it is wrong for people to want to do that for a period when they have young children. I do not want to get into the debate that people have to be dissuaded from what they believe is acceptable culturally. I do not believe a strategy for the Traveller community over and above the general population in terms of getting people who have small children out to work would be appropriate. However, childcare needs to be put in place to ensure everybody has the opportunity to choose which is appropriate for them. That is the main issue. It is not about the way they have been made to feel that, culturally, something is appropriate and something else is not. That is the first response in addressing the point made by Deputy Ellis, which is important to mention.

I understand from Dr. McGinnity that this is more about a deep level of disadvantage when it comes to employment. It is important we focus on that. The statistics she gave are stark. Soul-searching is a wonderful way to think about it and it is incumbent on all of us to see what we can do in our everyday lives.

Dr. McGinnity mentioned that if we look at educational attainment and all things being equal in terms of an individual in the Traveller community and someone in the settled community, the individual in the Traveller community is twice as likely to experience unemployment whereas they are six times more likely to experience that if they do not have the same level of educational attainment as the person in the settled community. That shows education is clearly significant and means there is something very focused we can do in that regard.

On the other issue, I am interested to hear if Dr. McGinnity's research uncovered the types of employment where the discrimination or bias may happen. Is there something around the public or the private sector we could point to that might help Ms Comerford's organisation, for instance? Are there are issues other than education or going into the community to which we can point? Is there something specific around the public or private sector in that regard that she could help us with?