Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. You will keep me to the five minutes. Keep smacht orm.

I welcome everyone here and thank them for the presentations, which were very useful. I also particularly recognise our Chair here. She has done a fantastic job as a Senator. She has been a great advocate not only for Travellers, but on many issues. She is also a great Chair of the Traveller committee within the Houses. Two things that happened have been important. One was the appointment by the Taoiseach of a Traveller to the Houses. The other was the setting up of a dedicated committee to deal with the challenges faced by the Traveller community. I am a long time in politics and the challenge in politics is that bringing change about is a slow business. Most of those present, as activists, have found that. No matter what level of government you are at, it is still a slow business, but over time when you look back you can achieve change, and everyone here has seen change in their lifetime.

We all just have to keep at it - all of the time - to try to ensure fair play and justice. One thing we all recognise is that every issue links in with another issue. For example, a number of witnesses have mentioned accommodation. If you do not live in good accommodation it affects your education, health and probably outcomes in relation to justice, etc. Therefore, that one issue is not just purely about a roof over your head, it is also about your whole lifestyle. I will give an example of where I find the system difficult. The issue of people living in poor quality trailers on Traveller halting sites is recognised and you would think it would be easy to resolve. I still cannot get my head around why this system keeps reviewing how the programmes are working when we know that €40,000 will only fund a second-hand trailer and that they are giving out an insufficient number of them to meet the requirement. Why are they not asking how many are needed and saying that they will provide them, which would be a very easy quick win? There is not a standard rental or repayment system. It goes on.

We have looked at this issue. The committee came very quickly to a view as to the changes we want but we have to try to persuade the system, which is very resistant to change, that we can wait no longer. I am only giving that as an example, because it is a very finite, simple issue that is not expensive to sort out once and for all so that all those who want to stay in trailers are entitled to live in a good quality trailer.

The same is true as we go across the various strands, such as education, where there are a lot of issues. We had a good session last week. The officials were very-----