John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. It was proposed last week that they would come. It was a quick response, if that was the case. I am not sure if a meeting had been planned. It is welcome that they are here and I thank them.

My first question relates to the education and welfare service. I am not sure if any of the witnesses are working directly in that area. There is a startling decrease in Traveller participation after the junior certificate. When this issue was raised previously, I was told that the education and welfare services do not work with children over the age of 16. That could be a cause of that decline. Would the witnesses think it would be beneficial if we changed the legislation to allow education and welfare officers to work with children up to the age of 18 in both the general community and the Traveller community? The percentage of children from the settled community who sit the leaving certificate is far higher than 25.6%. Would the availability of the service be of benefit in making sure that more children complete the leaving certificate?

On community link workers and the budget allocated, is there provision to expand the service? I know there is only one community link worker for Galway and Roscommon, which is quite a big geographical area with a sizeable Traveller population. With that in mind, we could benefit in that area from additional community link workers.

One of the reasons the witnesses are here today is that the National Traveller Women's Forum was before the committee last week. Its representatives spoke about the historical scepticism, which the witnesses have noted, of the Travelling community when it comes to social services. A piece of legislation in the 1960s was almost defamatory by comparison with modern language. Those representatives raised some of the issues that were included in Ms Duggan's opening statement, including the need for the ethnic identifier in line with the public duty. Are the witnesses confident that will be online this year? That would help.

There is no data concerning the number of Traveller children in care. The National Traveller Women's Forum felt that Travellers were over-represented in care settings. I am bringing that sentiment to the witnesses. Those representatives felt that Tusla was applying a lower threshold to Traveller families for referral to care settings. The suggestion was that Tusla is bringing children from the Traveller community into care settings quicker than it would children in the settled community. Do the witnesses have a response to that? It was an allegation that was made.

The Traveller women's group that was before the committee last week also highlighted an issue that I was delighted to hear raised in Ms Duggan's opening statement, which was that of kinship care. How can we promote that further? Are there barriers at the moment? Do we have figures on the number of Traveller families who are offering as foster families or who are willing to offer as foster families?

Another issue highlighted last week, and with which we are all familiar, is that trust would be enhanced if more members of the Traveller community worked with social care and social services. That has been mentioned as an objective of Tusla. How can we make it happen? Last week, Deputy McCormack asked about educational opportunities to allow Travellers to get qualifications in social care. Some scheme in Cork was mentioned. Can we roll that out further and offer it in different places? Do we have an objective to get a certain number of Travellers employed with Tusla social care? That would be a significant development and would help. I think those are all the questions I have for the moment.