Ms Sinéad Lucey:

I will pick up on a few comments made by Deputy Ó Cuív. I welcome his input, particularly on Part 8. The expert group on Traveller accommodation has already made recommendations on that particular issue. If those recommendations were implemented, the Part 8 issue would be resolved and it may not be necessary to do further work on the issue.

The other point that was raised was around the role of litigation, where it comes in and whether Travellers should be required to go to a lawyer in order to get access to things as basic as sanitary services or accommodation. While it is true they should not have to do so, Travellers come to us in numbers for these issues. We would emphasise that until the political class takes up the cudgels and finally resolves this issue, individual Travellers should have access to lawyers to take their case to the courts, as in any other system. If there is a systems failure, if legislation is not being implemented and if the Part 8 procedure becomes the victim of discrimination, that can be resolved through the courts. Then again, I do not see why it is inimical to the resolution of the more structural issues to have that balanced with individual Travellers having access to appropriate and expert legal services. Let them take their issue to the court and have their say there. I do not underestimate the difficulty of doing that for individual Travellers. Individual Travellers come to us and IHREC with issues and if we do not have another solution for them, we should be able to take their cases and that should be resourced.