Mr. Martin Collins:

When I was giving my opening statement, I spoke about the individual and systemic-institutional racism which can best measured from outcomes in education, employment, healthcare and accommodation. That is the best way to measure and assess institutional racism when there are poor outcomes from these services, such as the high unemployment rate, the low educational attainment and the over-representation of Travellers in the criminal justice system and the prisons. It is concerning that the draft Bill does not include the functions of public services and how they carry out their duties. Most of the issues I refer to emanate from the State and how it interacts with and delivers services to Travellers, whether it is gardaí, schoolteachers, the school community, healthcare providers and so forth. That is concerning. Mr. Herrick said it more eloquently than I did that it is concerning that public services are not included in any adequate fashion. This needs to be addressed.

Every witness referred to repealing section 19 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2003. We are an outlier in Europe that we such an arrangement. Other European equality bodies deal with all forms of discrimination, but in Ireland we have managed to split discrimination by licensed premises back to the District Court. This is a big issue for Travellers in terms of weddings, funerals, christenings and entertainment. When they go out on a Friday or Saturday night, most people in this room do not have an expectation that they will be refused at the door or if they manage to get in, they will stop serving you after one or two drinks. That has been our collective experience as a community on this island for centuries. Travellers need to be protected from that. We are not protected from that because we do not have an effective legal remedy in the present system. That is why the repeal of section 19 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act is crucial. The WRC needs to have jurisdiction over those investigations and adjudications.

When the Employment Equality and Equal Status Acts were first introduced back in the late 1990s, it was important that there was a community awareness campaign so that the community was made aware that there was a new legislative framework to enable people to seek redress if they felt they were being discriminated against. It is important that we do not lose sight of that. It not just a question of getting the legislation as right as we can. That is important of course but when the process is complete, we need to get the information about the new legislative framework and its potential for vindicating their rights out to the affected communities.