Mr. David Joyce:

There needs to be an understanding of institutional racism and some of the actions and outcomes of an institution's action and the impact on a particular group where it has not allowed for the possibility that the group will come out worse because the policies of a particular institution. The State obviously is an institution and the Dáil is an institution within that. Once one can identify that and the outcome of actions of an institution, one could say that within that institution there is certainly a blindness to the needs of minorities. If that is based on racism, one can describe it as that and call it for what it is as institutional racism. It does not mean that individuals within the institution are inherently racist or that they hold racist opinions - I refer to the workings of a group.

Parliaments - and not just the Irish Parliament - are classic at doing this.

Parliaments across Europe are sometimes blinded by not equality-proofing legislation to ensure that groups with cultural, ethnic or racial backgrounds in their societies are treated equally and by not assessing the impact of the legislation. That can be put down to institutional racism. What happens in national parliaments reflects society because the members of the parliament are elected by the people. A majority view of the Traveller community was reflected in public comment following Carrickmines. It is only logical that this will be reflected in parliament. Some of the legislation passed by the Irish Parliament had the ingredients of an institution that was blind and did not proof itself, and reflected a negative and racist attitude towards members of the Traveller Community. Organisations such as the commission are established by parliaments to ensure that does not continue. Our role is to comment on legislation and sometimes to focus the thoughts of Parliament on equality and human rights in legislation. That does not remove the responsibility of Parliament to behave in a proper way but we can ensure that legislation should not have the same impact on minorities, particularly the Traveller Community.