Ms Anastasia Crickley:

I will be as brief as possible, given Mr. Daly covered most of what I had wanted to say. We need to remind ourselves that we are a signatory to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which goes somewhere towards addressing some of those spurious differentials between migrants who are or are not deserving. To respond to Deputy McAuliffe in particular, it is not so much about naming people but about saying that, sometimes, these are not horrible statements from horrible people; this is what pretty ordinary local and national politicians are saying, in all sorts of circumstances that needs interrogation by themselves and by all Oireachtas Members. It is not always hate crime or something I can cite as such, but it divides people and creates a notion of some deserving, and of others not deserving, admission or the right to work here.

On the issue of education, I was a member for many years of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and I have been associated with the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for longer than I care to remember. Every one of the bodies with which I have been associated has asked that conditions be created within the Irish education system whereby everyone who is part of Ireland can be reflected within the system.

I have worked with Travellers for too long as well. I am familiar with the extent to which the Irish education system did not create conditions for full and equal access for everyone who is part of Ireland, or when the system did not reflect all the people who are part of Ireland.

I want to salute the people who are involved in the system, including a number of teachers like those who are present, who have pushed to try to change that. Yet, changing that in an immediate situation requires immediate responses. In the longer-term situation, it requires all who are associated with education and teacher training, a whole-of-school approach within the schools and processes that ensure that the curriculum and the people who are training to teach the curriculum reflect all of that.

That goes right back to the earlier question of the whole-of-government approach, which requires direct inputs from both Departments of education. In fairness to the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, it has begun a process of targeting groups for third level. However, there is a real need to begin to create conditions where our great educationalists can further reflect that and where what we mean by education can be shifted, rather than just spoken about in committees like this.