Ms Maria Joyce:

I am sure they can be involved in those situations and we would not be advocating for anything else if there is an issue. However, it is then about distinguishing what is a welfare issue and what support is required for the family to keep the children in the home, as opposed to it being an intervention that takes them out of the home. I will give the committee one example. We were in a space recently where there was some discussion around violence against women and women were speaking about their experiences. One woman spoke about her fear of seeking support for domestic violence because she had children. She knew from her previous experience and from other Traveller women that when they went in, it instantly became a case of the social worker coming into contact with the child. It is the women's fear of that and the risks that can be associated with it.

There was a settled woman speaking about her experience of domestic violence and seeking supports for domestic violence. She had children but she was never approached when she sought the support of the domestic violence service. There was never an intervention with the social worker and her children. As soon as the couple of Traveller women who were speaking about their experiences made contact with the service they were asked whether they had children and advised they would have to connect with the social worker. That is a bias that informs the thinking. There were children in that settled woman's home who did not have to interact with a social worker but as soon the services knew it was a Traveller woman the children had to interact with the social worker. That bias and interaction are factors in the over-representation of Traveller children in care. The State care system has failed settled people as well in terms of its institutional past and also currently we see examples emerging about settled children in the care system being failed in a phenomenal way, just as Traveller children are. It is not a specific strategy. In terms of the population more Traveller children are within the care system who should not be there if the supports were put into the community and the family, if preventative measures were put in place and if there was comprehensive training from a cultural competency, anti-racist perspective in terms of how staff, particularly young people who are not aware of or do not understand the culture and the way of life and do not bring the same respect to the engagement as they might in terms of the wider settled community. All of those reasons impact. I strongly encourage the committee to bring Tusla in here. I strongly encourage members to ask questions in relation to its data gathering, because what is there falls far below par in terms of what is needed and particularly when it is not coming at it from an ethnic identifier that is underpinned by a human rights approach in terms of self-identification.

That is not just about the numbers entering or leaving the care system. It is about all of the layers underneath in terms of the supports, resources, the monitoring and targeting spaces where Tusla could look to reduce these numbers based on knowledge. We also encourage the committee to ask Tusla questions about the area of how it, as a service, as a State agency, would look to have a proactive approach to a more diverse staff from top to bottom. Another issue that we put in our bigger paper is the investigation into over-representation of Traveller children in care. We also have seen segregated provision in this country in relation to Travellers in the education system where we still have a Traveller-only school being operated. We see it with Travellers in segregated institutions in the care system and see the damage and harm done in that space alongside the wider institutional spaces. It is important to dig down into those layers and the impact that has had on the continuing, real fear of families. There are grandparents looking after children. Tusla knows those families are there but those families will not seek supports because they do not want to bring a social worker to their door. The kids are being really well looked after but there are supports and resources that they could and should avail of but because of the wider fear they do not seek them.

We have seen cases where grandparents have sought support and children have ended up in care when they were being fairly well cared for by grandparents. Those are some examples of which we are aware on an anecdotal basis about the fear that stops parents, grandparents or wider family members from accessing supports.