Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for being with us. It is clear from the first presentation that educational participation is crucial. That must remain a great policy objective. It was fascinating to see the modelling of six versus two. The two figure is dreadful with the same educational level while the six is extraordinary.

There was a break in my feed but one Deputy raised the issue of positive discrimination. For a start, has the Public Appointments Service considered internships in every Department?

The second issue is quotas. All the female members of the committee and women guests know that we had to introduce quotas in public life to achieve gender equality in participation in public life. That was the correct thing to do and had to be done. Similarly, quotas will have to be introduced for Travellers, particularly in public service areas where that can be done and can work. I ask the witnesses to comment. The anti-racism policy that is coming offers potential in that regard.

I have visited Youthreach centres for a couple of reasons in my time and I noticed high Traveller participation in Youthreach. Can Youthreach participants transfer into jobs? The point about training centres, which was raised by Deputy McAuliffe, is also interesting.

Many of the Travellers I know personally do not look for jobs simply because they consider it a hopeless pursuit and they have no expectation of success. I have no expectation of success in snooker, ballet, dancing or whatever and, consequently, I do not pursue those pastimes. Where we do not think we will succeed, we do not do it. I would like a comment on that. There is need for input from the Traveller community to create some sort of a desire or confidence to actively seek work.

In that context, Ms McDonagh's point about lifting all boats is relevant. We have an excellent Traveller accommodation centre in Cavan. If a couple of people there got jobs, Ms McDonagh's point arises in that it would create an expectation and a desire in others.

I ask for a comment on community employment, CE, schemes. We have community employment schemes all over the country, including in my home town. Community employment is successful. Why could quotas not be applied to the CE scheme? Why could it not be made a prerequisite for funding a CE scheme that it have a workable quota? We cannot have crazy quotas initially. We need reasonable policy objectives but there is potential for quotas.

Will the witnesses comment on the anti-racism document that is being produced and its practical outputs in terms of employment for Travellers? It will need to be more than a mission statement or vision for anti-racism. It will have to have some practical implications. How could these affect Travellers and Traveller employment opportunities?

I thank the witnesses. The papers presented were extremely interesting. I read nearly all of them to the end.