Mr. Bernard Joyce:

I thank the Vice Chair. We have to start where gardaí are. At the moment, from the lived experience of Travellers and their dealings with An Garda Síochána, there have been tensions in the past, but the attitudes of gardaí towards the Traveller community can be poor. There are issues from the point of entry to training and the type of training that gardaí do. At the moment, the training is probably completely inadequate and not fit for purpose. I do not know if that resonates with other members here. Doing three hours or six hours of training is by no means going to be sufficient to equip them to deal with the community they serve. The other side of that is that gardaí are not particularly diversified. I do not see members of the Traveller community in An Garda Síochána, which does not give me much confidence, nor do I see members of other minority groups. The training and policing are dominated by white males. There needs to be a significant change. The Garda needs to become a modern service that reflects the society it polices. We are part of a diverse society. Travellers make up less than 1% of the population but find themselves in some ways over-represented in dealings with An Garda Síochána. We need to change that.

Some training is taking place in Templemore. We are not part of that but we would like to be. We would like to see more physical engagement post Covid-19, which is about the community going in to carry out particular modules along with other minority groups. It has to be embedded in training and not seen as a once-off.