Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses. I especially welcome Ms Corcoran. It is great to see the work of the Galway Traveller Movement here on the national stage. It is something that other counties could follow. I love to see the Bounce Back trucks going around the city. As a member of the Green Party, the recycling element is obviously very appealing to me.

One thing the organisation does well involves going into the universities during freshers' week. That is a really good thing because Travellers themselves are there engaging with students. It has a two-way approach. It gives people in the Traveller community more of an experience of universities and, likewise, the social enterprises that people can get involved in. When someone is in university doing a thesis and then moves out into the workplace, he or she can see how social innovation can make such a difference to the lives of people. Much of research goes into things that are corporate. That is the way research is set up in this country. We rely heavily for our funding model on a corporate structure within higher education. Social innovation can sometimes be dropped off because of that.

A point was made earlier by either Deputy Joan Collins or Deputy Ó Cuív. I agree that sometimes we have an overemphasis on looking at reviews. There is a balance to be struck. Not long ago we would have thought equality simply meant looking at every person as equal but actually we have to focus more on equity. It is about taking each person as they come and seeing that some people have more challenges because of their education and the discrimination they experience. It is not simply an issue of looking at each person as equal when they come to us, it is about saying that a given person has had to overcome more barriers. That is what I hear.

The emphasis on the importance of getting work experience matters because it gives people a leg up to the same level as other people who have had advantages. Deputy Joan Collins is right. Perhaps we need to look at quotas or positive discrimination. At its previous meeting, the committee examined rates of employment. We did not really get a full explanation from the ESRI around the rates in the public sector versus those in the private sector. The public sector is something we all work in and something we can do more about. Great gains could be made in the public sector in terms of work. I take on board what Ms Corcoran has said in respect of legislation impacting on the ability of people to set up their own businesses. I am keen to hear more about that and what we might be able to do. What can the committee recommend? It is not directly discriminatory but it is indirectly discriminatory if people from the Traveller community are more likely to set up businesses. If that is the case, then anything we are doing legislatively that will impact on sole traders will impact more negatively on the Traveller community.