Ms Ronnie Fay:

May I make a suggestion? The committee could ask the Department of Justice and Equality to present its strategy for the integration of Roma people into Ireland, although in reality it does not have one. The Department should be made aware of the weaknesses in the system and be held to account in this regard. Deputy Ó Ríordáin asked earlier about the Government approach to the Roma community. As I stated earlier, the mindset is if we ignore them, they will go away. In our view, they will not go away. The perception is that they are creating problems for Irish society in terms of begging and so on. We are concerned about the impact of this on the Roma community whose human rights, health, education and employment prospects are being denied them.