Ms Kathleen Sherlock:

On behalf of Mincéir Whiden, cant for "Travellers talking", Ireland's only all-Traveller forum, I thank the special joint committee for the opportunity to make a presentation on Travellers' health. We must start the submission, as we always do, by stating the obvious: the Traveller community is in crisis. The evidence is there for everyone to see. The Traveller community is at the top of every negative statistic and the bottom of every positive outcome in Irish society, whether education, employment, health, life expectancy, mental health, addiction and now the escalating suicide rates. The fact is that we are haemorrhaging people through chronic illness, ill health, addiction and now suicide. The underlying causes are poverty and poor living conditions, social isolation and exclusion. We in the Travelling community are losing our ability to cope and to endure. We are dealing with layers upon layers of grief. For decades the Traveller community has experienced unrelenting anti-Traveller bias and racism. We are the most disadvantaged, discriminated against and marginalised community within Irish society. Urgent action is needed to turn these challenges around.

The Irish Traveller population is currently fewer than 40,000. Today we are talking about the inequalities in Traveller health and mental health and the actions needed to address these inequalities. In doing so we cannot leave out the factors that contribute to the crisis in Traveller health and mental health. This is a crisis in Traveller accommodation, poor educational attainment among the Traveller community and high levels of unemployment, social exclusion and anti-Traveller bias and racism. These issues are interlinked and negatively impact Traveller health and well-being. To resolve the crisis and the destruction we are witnessing within the Travelling community, we must understand their interconnectivity and take a holistic approach in addressing each of these issues. These are not insurmountable issues to fix. With commitment and resolution they can be fixed, and we will be a better people and a better country for it. The neglect and inequality the Traveller community and pockets of deprived, long-term disadvantaged communities throughout Ireland have experienced and endured are a stain on the character of the nation and must be put right. Ireland is only a small country but we stand proud with the nations around the world for the contributions our country has made on the world stage. We must, however, address the internal challenges and support the people our nation has left behind for far too long. Successive Governments have failed to put in place decisive actions to resolve the inequalities which exist within our country and which have allowed so many of our people to be left behind, doing the best they can and trying to survive in conditions and with challenges that in many cases are hard to imagine in a first-world country such as Ireland. Sadly, too often the contributions made by individuals from the Traveller community and disadvantaged communities throughout Ireland that have made our nation what it is have been forgotten or underappreciated.

As a nation we cannot continue to blame people and communities for the marginalised, disadvantaged and deprived situations they were born into and are trying to survive in. It is time to reach out and pull up the citizens of our nation that have been left behind. We are not a problem people. We are not problem communities. We are people and communities with problems that are the direct result of generational poverty and exclusion. We need help and support to overcome the challenges our communities are facing, decisive Government actions and the implementation of equality-based policies to address these inequalities and challenges.

I will outline some statistics relating to the Travelling community. Life expectancy for Traveller men is 15 years younger than in wider society, for Traveller women 11 years younger. Our infant mortality rate is 3.7% higher than that of the general population. Suicide among Travelling men is just under seven times higher and now accounts for the deaths of 11% of Travellers annually. We currently have no statistics on the suicide rate among Travelling women, but this has become a very worrying trend in recent years.

A number of young Travellers, boys and girls, have also committed suicide.

I will outline some of our key recommendations. A national Traveller action plan should be published and implemented urgently. This should include the establishment of an institutional mechanism, within the HSE and the Department of Health, to drive delivery and implementation. This must be inclusive of clear targets, indicators and outcomes, timeframes and budgets. Sláintecare also recommends access to universal free general practitioner, GP, healthcare within the next five years. We recommend that Travellers be prioritised and fast-tracked in this process. We further recommend, with immediate effect, that all Traveller employment and primary healthcare projects are entitled to medical care similar to disability, community services programmes and community employment schemes. This would involve in the region of 300 medical cards.

Traveller-specific infrastructure, including Traveller health and primary healthcare projects, should be protected and receive increased resources for their expansion and development in line with the national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy. It is important that health reforms do not undermine the work in progress of the Traveller health units, THUs, given their institutional knowledge and impact on the ground. It must also be ensured that clear budgets are allocated and protected to address Traveller health and inequalities.

Finally, a national Traveller suicide intervention and prevention strategy needs to be implemented urgently. Some of the statistics that we do not have-----