Ms Rebecca Keatinge:

This discussion was framed with a focus on housing and, obviously, that is a crucial area to get that quick win the Deputy is focusing on. As the Chair and Dr. McDonagh have pointed out, however, this operates in a broader context of pervasive discrimination. Survey results from 2017 showed 90% of the Traveller community had experienced discrimination in their lifetime, which is a staggering figure. It is our experience at the commission and in our legal work that we meet new clients all the time who are experiencing discrimination in access to a wide range of services as well as, obviously, in housing.

We really welcome the call to action to try to bring some clear-cut action to fruition, and the work to date by the Traveller expert group and by this committee is really valuable for providing a sound evidence base for actions and for legislative change that has potentially positive implications by necessity. A process has to be gone through and that is a valuable one. We are in a space where egregious human rights abuses are ongoing and pressure needs to be brought to bear to make changes in that regard.

There is goodwill in many parts of the house. In the case of local authorities, while we talk about them here as not being active, many individuals within them are keen to move the dial and that can be brought forward in some of the micro-actions.

On the single authority question, that would bring consistency, help co-ordinate actions, bring oversight and potentially bring that transparency the Deputy mentioned, but it is not going to happen overnight, so we also need to think about the steps that could be taken now, such as education in respect of rights in the context of there being no legal aid, the difficulty for members of the Traveller community to challenge that pervasive discrimination, enabling greater access to justice and information and empowering the community.