Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

If nobody else is looking to get in, I have one or two questions. As a Traveller woman, I hope with all my heart that in five years' time things will be better. Things cannot get any worse for Travellers in the labour market. I really hope we will never need to have discussions like this again. It is very disheartening, with many different layers of inequality affecting Travellers' well-being and education. When I hear people referring to having certain schemes for Travellers, it is even more disheartening. Travellers are sick of schemes and legislation that exist but that do not work. I am a bit fed up reading about legislative policies. I speak to people in Traveller non-governmental organisations and currently there is discussion about a quota for the number of Travellers to be employed in the public and private sectors. That is a step in the right direction. It could be a recommendation in our report but it must be acted upon.

Many Travellers have completed second level education and may have done a course, such as the hairdressing course done by many Traveller women or nail and beauty courses. My uncle drives for a bus company in Bluebell and he has just been named driver of the year. We should look at some of the good practices. He is able to bring the bus into Labre Park and there is no prejudice from the company. That is lovely and we must see more of that. We must see action.

I said at a previous committee meeting that if Travellers were not employed by Traveller organisations, including non-governmental organisations, there would be more than 80% unemployment in the community. Employment for Travellers must be meaningful. Tokenism and positive discrimination can be beneficial.

Being in a job and not being successful in the workplace is not a nice feeling. People are being set up for failure and we have to look at this as well.

I have a question for the unions. How do they think we can get Travellers to be open about identity? I have an aunt who works in a nursing home and does not identify as a member of the Traveller community because she cannot do so. Many Travellers cannot identify as Travellers because straight away they are put at a disadvantage. During the week I saw on social media that a Traveller qualified as a consultant and another is a doctor in a hospital. This is very good and positive and it should be in the media. We need stories that are positive towards the Traveller community.

I have a question for Ms Costello on something Deputy Ó Cuív asked earlier. I have a great interest in the intersectionality between being a Traveller and a woman, being a Traveller and being in prison and being a Traveller and having a disability. We say the prisons could do more. Many Traveller men drive lorries and buses. Yesterday, along with Oein DeBhairduin, I was in a conversation about how everything today is about being green and recycling but Travellers have always recycled through wheeling and dealing and street markets. My family was a market family in Athy, which was lovely. We come from this and it is part of our survival as a community of people.

What do the witnesses believe we can do better in our prisons for women and for men? I also invite the witnesses from the unions to respond to the other issues I have highlighted.