Ms Jacinta Brack:

I thank the Deputy for his question. Travellers encounter many blockages in the civil legal aid system. One, in particular, is that under the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995, there are restrictions to taking cases around access to services such as housing and education and for social welfare appeals, as well as employment cases. Given the frequency with which Travellers need recourse in the area of equality law, that becomes a big problem, not least because many Travellers have difficulty, for instance, looking for private services due to the cost, but also because often Travellers are discriminated against in those services. Therefore, automatically, there are particular exclusions. We welcome the fact that the equality Acts are currently being reviewed. That is really important.

There are other significant barriers, such as the restrictions under section 28 of the Act, including cases where a person is served with an eviction notice. This, as we know, disproportionately impacts on Travellers who cannot access that support. We have made many recommendations in the submission to the committee. There is a particular barrier to Travellers in matters relating to eviction. If we could draw that to the attention of members later, we would welcome the opportunity to do so. The accessing of private legal services is difficult for Travellers on the basis of cost and also on the basis of the lack of cultural competency that exists within the service.

We have been told by the community that when they go to access legal aid, very often they are met either with hostility, indifference or an unfamiliarity on the part of the people they encounter, even at the point of entry of those services, who are not familiar with the type of law that Travellers want to access, namely, equality law. That is something we know needs to be reformed and reviewed, at least. Often, what happens in the meantime is that Traveller organisations have to act as amiciin various quasi-tribunals, for instance, the WRC. Also, as Mr. Joyce mentioned, the services are fragmented and there is no specialised legal service for Travellers or a single body that collects data from which to work. That has obviously undermined the extent to which Travellers access legal services. One of the recommendations that we have made to the committee is to resource the establishment of a Traveller independent law centre in order to service the national demand.