Professor Amanda Haynes:

We in this country talk a lot about minimal criminalisation and ensuring that we use custody as a measure of last resort. The degree to which that actually happens in practice is questionable. The degree to which it is happening in respect of Travellers is highly questionable. What is shown by the prison data we have is that there is greater similarity across ethnicity for Travellers and between men and women in terms of what they are in prison for whereas for the non-Traveller population, it is more about gender. Men are in prison for different offences than women. Overall, Travellers are in prison for more minor offences than non-Travellers. That must be addressed.

Canada has a provision that states that for the indigenous community in particular, custodial sentences should be avoided by every means possible. The degree to which that is implemented in practice is another matter but those are the types of provisions that we need to be moving towards. We then need to monitor their effective implementation. I agree with the Leas-Chathaoirleach.