Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not keep the committee a minute. On education, consent and sex education in school and our education system, I know of many Traveller children who were told they did not have to do sex education or consent education on the grounds of culture. I have seen this with Muslim people and black people too. That is something that needs to be addressed.

I welcome the Men's Development Network here today. When we do talk about gender we include men in that conversation as well.

Very quickly, I wish to refer to refuges. I do not know if anyone can answer this question. To the best of my knowledge, from my own personal experiences working as a community development worker on the ground with people from ethnic minority groups, our refuges are not fit for purpose for use by all women. They are not inclusive of all women from ethnic minority groups.

As Ms McDermott just pointed out, racism can be in school. We need to educate our children in how to not be racist. Much of the time education starts at home. Unfortunately, we educate our children to hate and to be racist and we normalise it within our society, especially towards members of the Traveller community.

We need a bigger conversation around how our refuges can be inclusive and can meet the needs of women, especially from ethnic minority groups. Our education system should be inclusive of all of our children. They all need the same information around consent. No matter what older traditions there are or anything that goes with that, it is still eventually going to happen. People need to be educated and that includes Traveller people. If your culture puts men in one place and women in another, there is an issue with the culture. Sometimes our systems can put men from different cultures in one place and women in another. That is very unfair in general. That is a general point that I would like to make.