Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the presentation. A lot of the questions I had were probably addressed in the response to Deputy Ellis. There is an overarching issue with the cross-collaborative approach, not just from the Department of education. The big challenge from my experience with Traveller families in my own community is that with issues like housing, intergenerational unemployment and lots of others Traveller families experience, any of these individual barriers can be insurmountable to a family and take a child out of the education system at a very early stage. What I have found frustrating is sometimes, programmes are very inconsistent. Initiatives are started and programmes are set up on Traveller education. These run, then stop and are then started again or they are not funded again. That momentum that should be driving a much more co-ordinated approach is lost. Sometimes, there is not even adequate funding for youth work, which can have a really detrimental effect on whether young Traveller boys and girls stay in secondary school, in particular. That is a real concern.

Does the forum have a wider input into other Departments in terms of its ability to influence and shape budgets and recognises the real and significant challenges that Traveller young people face in their daily lives, one of which is living in poor conditions? At Traveller Pride in Kilkenny, I was very fortunate to meet a fantastic young man who is now in third level. It is such a rare occurrence, however. He is fantastic and going on to great things. What we would love to see is not just Traveller boys and girls staying on to complete their leaving certificate cycle but actually going on to third level or doing apprenticeships. I know there is a Traveller apprenticeship programme. My first question is really about joined-up thinking and programmes at a local level where there are local Traveller inclusion strategies but sometimes the programmes are dropped or there is a funding inconsistency or gap that fails to recognise the need to continue them.