Ms Joanna Corcoran:

On Bounce Back Recycling, no entrepreneur came in. It was a piece of work that was thought of and worked on by Travellers in the Galway Traveller Movement, GTM. Martin Ward sends his apologies, as he should have been here but he was not able to present today. It was his brainchild, along with the hard work of the other Traveller members. I know the people in GTM and they fought very hard to get the funding and to get the okay to go ahead and get it set up. It is an absolutely brilliant social enterprise.

It has come on along with the local First Class Insulation enterprise. It has done wonders for the community. We have a line-up of so many people wanting to join and work in Bounce Back Recycling from the Traveller community but at the moment due to local fund savings and other situations we can only employ so many. As far as self-employed Travellers are concerned, as the Chairperson, Senator Flynn, has just said, there are some out there. Even though they may have a business going and they may be successful or they may be just starting up, they experience the exact same barrier as Travellers looking for mainstream employment. For example, we have a Traveller firm here in Galway which is a vendor. It may secure a job by putting in a tender and will go through every step that every other company will go through and may get the job if its tender is accepted. A phone call will then be made as to why the people in that firm should be employed as they are Travellers. They will then lose the job and the placement and a non-Traveller will get this position. These self-employed people are experiencing the exact same barriers as Travellers who are going for mainstream jobs.

I should also mention that one of the biggest employers of Travellers are local Traveller organisations. We should not have to be in that posoition. Travellers should be accepted and there should be placements for Travellers in local jobs. It should not be a case of employing one’s own. As Senator O'Sullivn has said we are all equal and there should not be an "other" with us and at the moment there is. That is normalised, and we end up taking away the humanity of ordinary Travellers.

That is the reason for the low numbers in employment in the State. So many Travellers have to hide their identity. Where it says that 80% of Travellers are not employed, I would say that the number is are a great deal less than that. We just do not know because Travellers have to hide their identity when they get a job.

As far as invalidity claims are concerned, unfortunately it is well documented that Travellers have a poorer health status than many members of the settled community. That is to do with the different factors that we have to experience within our lives. From birth to death, Travellers are having to deal with racism and discrimination in different ways. There is institutionalised racism from the day one is born to the day one is taken away from this world. Poor health is a big part that builds on top of that.

There is a positive thing in the social enterprises and Bounce Back Recycling and, hopefully, there are other organisations and people across Ireland who will be taking the initiative or taking on workers if they receive the right funding. That is why we and all of the people here call on the Government for that financial support to be put behind these initiatives and for actions to be taken. I thank the committee.