Professor Amanda Haynes:

There are always benefits to looking at the complaints process. The accessibility of the complaints process is something we need to look at. At present it is very digitally oriented. All of the information that is available is available is online, for example. For a community that experiences educational disadvantage and digital disadvantage, this is particularly problematic. Fiosrú will have public awareness-raising functions and we very much hope it will specifically target the Traveller community to help them to learn and to learn from them what would be the most accessible way to make a complaint and the assistance that might be needed. It is the same with the judicial conduct council.

Overall the complaints system is simply being underused by Travellers at present. This is my major concern. This is very important. When we speak at various events, we often encounter people from An Garda Síochána who come to the events because they are the committed individuals who are trying to make progress in their organisations. This means we are preaching to the choir. The complaints process is very important for those individuals who perhaps are not coming on board with the idea of being a learning organisation.

At present, as Mr. Joyce said, there is an enormous fear of retaliation. It is very difficult. I do not have a solution to it at present. There is no way to protect the identity of the complainant in either of the complaints processes at present. A judge against whom a complaint is made will be told the identity of the complainant before it has even been determined whether the complainant is legitimate enough to be considered. With regard to the police, we still have a system where police investigate police. Even under the newly established Fiosrú and under the new legislation, an unknown proportion of complaints will simply be delegated to An Garda Síochána for it to investigate complaints about itself. How can we ask a community that already feels overpoliced as suspects and underpoliced as victims to trust a complaints process where their identity will be known and where they will be investigated by the people against whom they are making the complaints? This is the fundamental problem.