Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Good afternoon, Vice Chairman. I really appreciate the invitation from the committee to attend and discuss this really important matter. I am joined by my colleagues in the Department, Ms Carol Baxter and Ms Janet Lacey. I know many people on this committee have been engaging in working to support the Traveller and Roma communities over many years. We can all agree that the Traveller and Roma communities have long suffered from negative stereotyping but also severe and systemic discrimination. The Government is committed to ensuring full equality of opportunity for Travellers and Roma and to removing barriers to their full and equal participation in Irish life. There has been progress on some of these issues and I will reference this in my speech today. However, we are all here very conscious of a great amount more to do.

As members will be aware, the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021 provides a framework for action on Traveller and Roma issues. It represents a whole-of-government approach, as the Vice Chairman said. It brings Government Departments and agencies together with representatives of the Traveller and Roma communities and their representative groups in a focused and structured way on key issues.

The national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy, NTRIS encompasses action on themes such as cultural identity, education, employment, health and accommodation. I chair the NTRIS steering committee, which includes Traveller and Roma representatives. Our most recent meeting was on 2 November. The Government Departments' report to the committee on implementing actions uses a traffic light system that helps to identify delays in the implementation of actions.

A number of subgroups are in place, such as in relation to education, with the aim of ensuring that key actions get the attention they need. Departments have responsibility for delivering actions under their areas of responsibility and for ensuring that sufficient resources are secured through annual estimates processes to facilitate those actions.

The programme for Government committed to a review of the strategy and I am committed to working with stakeholders to reviewing what has been achieved and to developing new approaches, as necessary, with a particular focus on implementation and measurement. One of the key points to come out of my chairing of this committee is the need for a greater outcomes focus on the NTRIS successor strategy. My Department is seeking proposals for an evaluation of the processes for implementation of three equality strategies, NTRIS, the migrant integration strategy and the national strategy for women and girls, all of which are concluding at the end of this year. The timeline for receipt of proposals for that evaluation is early December and the review will be completed by mid-2022. I have proceeded with an evaluation process that spans a number of equality strategies because I want to put the focus on implementation and on good practice. The objectives of our equality strategies remain largely relevant. The key challenge is to ensure better delivery. That is a challenge that goes beyond NTRIS. I want to identify potential good practice in some areas that can be transferred to others. I also want to see how intersectionality can be addressed more coherently. This issue in particular has been raised regularly at our NTRIS meetings. We know, for example, that the issues facing Traveller women and girls are different from those facing Traveller men and boys. We need to see in this context how the successor strategy to the national strategy for women and girls can work in tandem with NTRIS’s successor strategy to deliver particular outcomes for Traveller women and girls, and similarly, for LGBTI+ members of the Traveller community with the LGBTI+ strategy. Intersectionality must be a real focus in the new NTRIS.

I have decided that the current NTRIS steering committee will remain in operation during the review process and that my Department will continue to convene meetings of the committee. Work will continue on implementing NTRIS actions, many of which remain very relevant. We will continue to engage with the Departments and representative organisations to ensure that actions are progressed. The strategy committee’s role will also be pivotal in developing the consultation process and the content for the successor strategy. NTRIS continues to be regarded as a blueprint for action to address the needs of Traveller and Roma communities. In this regard, the successor strategy will not represent change for the sake of change. I will listen very carefully to stakeholders to see what they advise on the changes needed. If they favour updating NTRIS rather than launching into a wholesale change of it, I will very much take those views on board. In that instance, the successor strategy would align closely to NTRIS. The advice provided by Traveller and Roma organisations will directly shape the scope and focus of the next strategy.

My Department has an important funding role to support activities linked to NTRIS. This year, my Department has provided €4.9 million of Exchequer funding and a further €700,000 from the Dormant Accounts Fund to support Traveller and Roma initiatives. Up to €3 million is provided as core funding to specific NGOs. This year, for budget 2022 I secured a 15% increase in funding for this area and the budget is now €5.659 million. We have also had a significant uplift in Dormant Accounts Funding, on which the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, worked very hard and particularly to direct additional Dormant Accounts Fund funding towards Traveller and Roma initiatives. This year, my Department will receive €940,000 in such funding, specifically for Traveller and Roma initiatives. I am aware that other Departments will see a similar uplift.

As the committee will be aware, funding is provided across a range of Government Departments to support and address the specific needs of the Traveller and Roma communities. In the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, for example, the Traveller-specific accommodation budget for 2020 was €14.5 million. I am aware that the committee has dedicated several meetings to the issue of Traveller accommodation and has heard from the Ombudsman for Children in relation to the No End in Site report. We can all agree that the report made for incredibly difficult reading about the conditions on the site in question.

The annual HSE expenditure on Traveller and Roma-specific health initiatives is in the region of €10 million, including €350,000 on Traveller mental health. The HSE has recruited two dedicated Traveller health posts to develop a Traveller health policy and to co-ordinate implementation of the Traveller health action plan. My Department has provided additional funding and other supports to our partner Traveller organisations for the continued provision of necessary services during Covid-19 to the Traveller and Roma population, including in appropriate languages.

School attendance is a specific challenge for some members of the Traveller and Roma communities and I am aware that the Department of Education will be meeting with the committee later today. My Department provides funding for a pilot programme to target attendance, participation, retention and school completion in specific Traveller and Roma communities. Deputy David Stanton initiated this programme when he was the Minister of State with responsibility for this area. The pilot team works together with parents, children and young people, schools, Traveller and Roma communities and service providers to remove the barriers impacting on Traveller and Roma children’s attendance, participation and retention in schools. The pilots are taking place in Galway, Wexford, Dublin and Cork. The Out of the Shadows report, which was the baseline study on this pilot has just been published in the last few days. I have not had a chance to read through the entire report but I have seen the summary. Two aspects stick out for me, namely, the majority of Travellers felt unwanted in schools and their overall experience of the education system was "bleak". That was the word used. This is a real flag to us all about the importance of acting in this area, given that this is their view and their experience. Members will be aware there is a commitment in the programme for Government to a Traveller education strategy that will look at early years, which falls under my Department; primary and secondary, which falls under the Department of Education; and third level education and further education, which falls under the Department of the Minister, Deputy Harris. Work on this Traveller education strategy will be progressed by the education subgroup of NTRIS.

Employment is also an ongoing challenge in the communities. My Department funds the special initiative for Travellers, SIT, to provide support for practical approaches to redressing the imbalance in Traveller under-employment, to support Travellers already engaged in the Traveller economy and to provide other supports, including training, to address the needs of Travellers. The SIT funding includes support workers and assistance for employment and enterprise development. There are currently SITs in seven locations around Ireland. Additional funding has also been provided to Involve, a community organisation, to assist this. The Pathways to Work Strategy 2021 – 2025 has a focus on those who experience additional barriers to entering work faced by those in the Traveller and Roma communities. The strategy will, for the first time, set out specific commitments relating to the Traveller and Roma communities and will examine how to capture data on ethnicity.

The impact of the pandemic has led to increased stress and anxiety in the Traveller and Roma communities. My Department funds both the Traveller Mediation Service and the Traveller Counselling Service. This year, €330,000 has been made available to the Traveller Counselling Service and €240,000 to the Traveller Mediation Service. One of mediation service’s unique attributes is that it employs Travellers as mediators who have the necessary understanding of Traveller culture and who inspire confidence in Travellers to avail of the service. There has been an increase in demand for the services and especially self-referrals from Traveller women.

My Department also funds the National Traveller Women’s Forum, which is working to empower Traveller women. Additional funding was provided for community projects that support and promote leadership roles for Traveller and Roma women. There is a need to enhance cultural awareness of Traveller identity and to create greater visibility of Traveller culture and heritage. My Department has worked to advance this and has provided funding of €100,000 for Traveller Pride Week to empower national, regional and local organisations to celebrate Traveller and Roma culture and diversity.

We are also progressing a project with the National Museum of Ireland to develop an online portal to Traveller culture collections. This will see the creation of an online portal of objects, archives, photographs, recordings and other collections held in the national cultural institutions and a national folklore archive pertaining to Traveller culture or history.

The collection of data on Traveller and Roma participation in public service programmes and services is crucial to understanding the degree of access that Travellers and Roma have to various services and programmes. We need disaggregated data, which is crucial for determining outcomes for Travellers and Roma. Work has been undertaken within the NTRIS framework to develop an ethnic identifier, whereby Traveller and Roma participation in service programmes can be disaggregated and outcomes can be tracked. This work is now feeding into a broader process, led by my Department and the Central Statistics Office, CSO, to develop a new equality data strategy, which will have a major impact on issues of race and outcomes for different racial groups in our society. The equality data strategy’s purpose will be to establish a cross-departmental framework for gathering data and standardising the classification of such data. The strategy is being advanced under the auspices of the equality budgeting working group, jointly chaired by my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which is developing capacity within the public service to assess the equality aspects of budgetary expenditure.

I reiterate my commitment, and that of the Government, to supporting action to ensure that Travellers and members of the Roma community can participate fully and equally in Irish society. As I said at the start, I am conscious that a major amount of work remains to be done. I look forward to receiving the committee's report in due course, which I hope will also help to inform the successor strategy to NTRIS.