Ms Tracey Reilly:

A very small number of our community are in the higher education sector. The Deputy asked me if there was a person who helped me to get to where I am today. I have got to where I am through doing courses such as the training of trainers in Pavee Point in which I got a merit. Then I got an opportunity to do the community work in a changing Ireland course, which is part of a programme called ROMED and was also a Maynooth certificate course. Twenty-four Travellers and Roma throughout Ireland participated on that course. It was that course that put the fire in my belly and empowered me to go forward. It gave me a taste for education that I had missed out on for so many years. I went to Maynooth and those who helped me to stay with the course and gave me an insight and in-depth knowledge of education were the people in the department of applied social studies or social science who were over my course. They were all very friendly and supportive and they helped me to get through it. They did not do the work for me in terms of assignments and reports. I was left to do that myself during Covid but I got through it fine. I am where I am today but were it not for those courses, which empowered me and put a fire in my belly, I do not think, if I am to be honest, I would be where I am today. I suppose I will hear people saying that I do not know where I will head to in the future or what my plans are. Being in college opened my eyes and gave me a new understanding. Getting experience from engagement with other minority, marginalised and disadvantaged groups made me realise that as a Traveller women sitting here today, there is no better place to be than in my own corner with my own community challenging the inequality we face and fighting for our basic human rights. That is what I will be planning for the future.