I welcome our guests. I remind people of their privileges and that they cannot participate if they are outside of Leinster House, etc. Those giving evidence have to be physically present within the grounds of Leinster House and should not criticise or make charges against any person, or identify him or her by name or in such a way that makes him or her identifiable. I think we all understand that.

I propose that we publish the opening statements from our witnesses. Is that agreed? Agreed. I suggest that we invite our witnesses to speak for five or ten minutes and that we allow members to ask questions and make comments for approximately five minutes. Members may ask more questions after everybody gets an opportunity to speak.

The committee is looking at Travellers' experience of the justice system. Today we will focus on Travellers in prison. The committee has already visited Castlerea Prison, Mountjoy Female Prison - the Dóchas Centre - and Oberstown Children Detention Campus. Travellers represent less than 1% of the population yet we make up 8% of male prisoners, 16% of female prisoners and 21% of children detained. The committee looks forward to hearing from our witnesses about this very important subject. We would like to hear about the experience of Travellers dealing with the justice system, including prison, and how we can make things better.

We are grateful to our witnesses for coming here today. They include representatives of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, the Traveller Justice Initiative, the Traveller Mediation Service and Barnardos.

Our witnesses are all very welcome here today.

It is very important for us as a committee to examine the justice system and, most importantly, why there are so many Travellers in prison in this country and what supports we need for Travellers. I am sure we all know the answers but it is important we document those answers and that this committee has a responsibility to work with the Traveller community.

We will begin with one quote a young man said to me in 2020. It was his first time to be in court and he was very nervous. I said to him he will be okay and that everything will be fine. He said, "No Eileen, I am already guilty." I said no, he would not be and that was up to the judge. He said, "I am guilty on the basis of being a member of the Traveller community." I want us all to be mindful of that before we start.

I will open it up to our witnesses. I ask Ms Saoirse Brady to begin.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I cannot stress enough the importance of this. People in locations that have been referenced often feel they are ignored and forgotten. I thank Ms Attridge for taking the opportunity to listen but I need to see concrete progress being made.

There are situations where there are long-term water outages. Whitegate is a good example, although the C and AG and the Chairman are probably asking why I am raising these domestic issues in my own constituency. Some 9,000 people have been almost a decade without a quality water supply. I have a big issue with the policy of Uisce Éireann around providing those homes with remediation or some form of compensation. They want to be able to access quality water and an emergency water supply in their own areas, whether that is bottled water or otherwise. There is a cost to having to go in and out for water, particularly for OAPs, vulnerable people and those in households where there is somebody with a disability or being cared for. Midleton is the nearest town in that area and it has had its own challenges in recent times. It is not fair. I believe they should be given some form of compensation for the provision of bottled water. It adds a huge cost to those individual homes. To my knowledge, under the current policy, there is no plan in place whereby Uisce Éireann would step in, do what is morally right and provide those homes with a supply of bottled water in their own communities, rather than getting them all to travel in and out to their nearest urban centre, which is grossly unfair. The same could be said for Ballyhooly.