Mr. Niall Crowley:

The Senator's point about moving away from stating the problem to getting results is a timely statement. It certainly came up powerfully for us in the research. What we covered was not a set of problems but a set of ambitions and aspirations that were being thwarted. There was a real drive for change coming from the Travellers we interviewed but a real sense of that being blocked. That needs to be unleashed, as much as anything else.

Social enterprise is one route. It is a particular type of enterprise that requires a particular type of support and has a particular type of potential for a group like Travellers. It is a particular type of enterprise in that it is economic activity at the service of social gain. It requires particular supports in that there needs to be a sustained support of the enterprise to achieve that social gain. The Galway Traveller Movement has wonderful examples and models for people to follow in terms of clear economic activity and social gain coming from it, along with the clear need for particular supports and a particular reach out to the Traveller community to enable it to access that.

The second point I would pick up is that community employment, CE, schemes did come up as quite significant in the research. They do have a key role to play but they have to be part of a pathway. They cannot be just an end in themselves. We interviewed Travellers who had a good experience in CE. It came to an end and in a way, that was it. It has to part of a pathway, rather than an end in itself. We came across other really good examples where CE was part of a pathway and people grew through the CE scheme into employment settings very successfully but we also encountered significant frustration where people had made real efforts on the CE scheme and ended up being blocked at the end of it for the lack of a pathway.

The liaison workers are crucial. We saw significant success from liaison workers who were in place but there needs to be a much clearer programme of liaison workers, a much better national spread of it and a much higher standard set across all providers of those liaison services. That link, in terms of enabling employer capacity to manage diversity, enabling Traveller capacity to access employment and being that trusted link, is a key gap in current provision and emerged as probably one of the most important recommendations.

The peer-led services are very particular. Peer-led services are most developed in the health sector. They are beginning to open up a little in the education sector. They are underdeveloped in other sectors. They could be developed in the accommodation sector. It is where, essentially, Travellers have been employed to provide links between key services and the Traveller community. They build a capacity in the key service to engage with Travellers. They build a Traveller capacity to engage with the services. It is very effective, but we should see progression for peer workers. They should be able to progress from those settings into mainstream employment within those particular services. They gain real skills in being involved in those peer-led services and we need to see a wider range of those peer-led services.

Finally, in terms of the private sector, one of the things we picked up was a real interest, particularly coming from the social partners, in terms of enabling Traveller access to employment in the private sector, the social partners mobilising their members to develop local area based pilot initiatives but also a lack of support through the social partners to enable that to happen. Training to be provided to their members, guidance to be provided to their members and initiatives to be developed with their members in partnership with Traveller groups hold real potential in that regard.