Mr. Bernard Joyce:

On racism, people seem to think racism is the name-calling or that it is very direct but there is a subtleness in terms of how people engage with children but also with parents. For example, when the Chairman suggests it might not be as visible, people need to check and ask where are the play dates or the interaction between a child going over to a person's home and meeting up. We know a lot of informal relationships happen not in school but outside the school, and those relationships are bonded outside the school although they transpire within education. What we are highlighting is the expectations of teachers with regard to these children. We are talking not about anecdotal evidence but about a real evidence base. Some children are going into school with this great energy and confidence from the home and they are really geared up. Then they come out and they move from this confidence to holding their head down in shame. That is what we are looking at. They come out of the school with their head down in shame because they have just been isolated or it is the very first time they have been discriminated against. The very first time you can get discriminated against can be in school. That is where you are told you are different but you are not sure exactly what that difference is. How do we explain to five-year-olds that they are different? People do it in a certain way. They are treated in such a way and they come home and they are so upset that they do not want to go back to the school or the classroom.

I know that, for most people in society, the one thing we have in the community is our family and we cherish them and care for them. We want them to succeed and do well but we do not want them to go into a jungle or a hostile environment where their confidence is tarnished and brought from a high to flat on the ground and where they are nearly crawling out of the school. That is not what we want. Nor do we want people off their own backs to need to have drive. People call it resilience but it nearly needs resilience to be a Traveller now in that they have to go through these challenges to retain their culture and their identity. They do not want that. It should be accepted, acknowledged and supported.

Many schools may not have things like Traveller culture and posters. My daughter has done the leaving certificate and it is great that she has done that, so we know that people come out at the other end and they are often the first to do that. When they talked about diversity in school, she had the confidence to go up and ask whether Travellers would be covered in that but there was a silence and a dismissiveness about it. They wanted to talk about diversity but not talk about Travellers within that diversity. How do we reconcile that? There is a selectiveness in terms of looking at diversity and excluding Travellers within it, as if somehow being a Traveller is an issue. I think that is part of the problem. When we talk about Travellers, it is as if it becomes an issue or something we have to address. We need to get beyond that. We all need to check ourselves. We need to check in order that if there are opportunities to excel in education, the supports, the structures and the environment are created to achieve that.

Anti-racism needs to be embedded within education in order that it is supported and there is ongoing professional training to deliver anti-racism. Those are my points with regard to racism.