Ms Anne Costello:

I thank the Chair and committee members for allowing us to address them. The overall aim of the Traveller Justice Initiative is to embed positive change in policy and practice of the justice system that will produce positive outcomes for Travellers, their families and the broader community. We are funded by the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service, and we are now being hosted by the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

I acknowledge the huge commitment of this committee to the issue of Travellers in the justice system, and we greatly appreciate that. Senator Flynn referred earlier to the visits to the prisons, etc., and that has had a huge impact. When I spoke to the committee in 2021, I spoke about the over-representation of Travellers and the similarities with other ethnic minorities and indigenous groups around the world with regard to the causes and factors leading to that over-representation, so I am not going to go into that in great detail.

As Ms Brady said, the latest statistics show us that 8% of all prisoners are Traveller prisoners.

Collecting data is important for us in trying to influence outcomes for Travellers in the system, as we need to understand their situation, but we have concerns about the accuracy of the data. If the statistics are correct, then the percentage of Travellers in the prison population has reduced by two percentage points recently. Unfortunately, I do not believe that to be the case. The Prison Service has committed to gathering data on Travellers at committal and interview stages, but a number of Travellers have approached me to say they have never been asked about their ethnicity. In 2019, the Prison Service undertook a census of all Travellers in prison. That was a good process and we worked on it collaboratively. We are asking that the service do it again so that we can have an accurate count of the number of Travellers in prison.

We have been advocating for us to write joint reports with the Prison Service, as context is important. Figures on their own can be meaningless. Where enrolment in education is concerned, for example, throwing a box of crayons into someone’s cell is counted the same as someone doing an Open University degree. We want to work with the Prison Service on a joint report analysing why the figures are the way they are.

When this committee visited the Dóchas Centre, the psychologist there spoke about women in prison. She stated that, in her experience, women in prison were often victims of more serious crimes than those they had committed themselves. This is our experience also.

Since the presentation in 2021, there has been a positive development in that an application by the National Traveller Women’s Forum and us to the Department of Justice has been successful. We are pleased we are now working in partnership with Barnardos and that it is delivering a service for Traveller women at all stages in the criminal justice system – as soon as they come into contact with the law, while they are in prison and post release. Most importantly, this is done working with their families. I am delighted Ms O’Shea and Ms Carroll from Barnardos are in attendance to discuss this further.

It is our hope we can extend this model of support to all prisons. As Barnardos will explain, the level of demand from women has far exceeded our expectations. There has been considerable engagement. The complexity of the women’s issues has also been somewhat surprising. We are asking for additional funding for Barnardos' work and for an extension of that type of support to all Travellers in prison and their families. We applied to the Department of Justice and I am delighted to say that we have had a very positive response. We are awaiting post-budget announcements. It will be a therapeutic, flexible and trauma-informed model and will start producing outcomes for Travellers in the criminal justice system.

Ms Brady alluded to issues for Travellers in prison, for example, racism and discrimination. Travellers also raise with me issues of racist language and behaviour from other prisoners and, more seriously, prison staff. Those concerns have also been raised in reports by the Office of the Inspector Prisons and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Ms Sweeney and I have delivered training to prison staff, but one-off training for staff with deeply ingrained anti-Traveller attitudes is not going to make a great difference. We are asking for a proactive approach that clearly sets out there is zero tolerance for racist language and behaviour. There have to be disciplinary consequences for people who continue to engage in such language and behaviour. People can dismiss language as only being words, but it can be damaging for people in prison, particularly Travellers.

A positive development has been in the area of pre-sentence reports. Judges ask probation officers to write reports on offenders in terms of their circumstances and likelihood of reoffending. From our work with the Probation Service, we realise that the risk assessment tool it uses can be discriminatory towards Travellers. Risk levels are higher for people who leave school early, are unemployed, have insecure housing, etc. Due to structural inequalities, many Travellers fall into these categories without ever being involved in crime. For this reason, we are delighted the Probation Service has changed its risk assessment tool. It is also working with us on developing guidelines on how it should interpret risk assessments. If we do not do this, then Travellers will be disproportionately affected by the assessments and end up getting harsher sentences.

We are pleased we were invited to make a presentation to the District Court judges’ annual conference this year. Ms Sweeney also presented at that. It was a useful opportunity to meet judges and speak to them about Travellers. Many judges acknowledged that, although they saw Travellers inside and outside their courts every day, they knew very little about the challenges Travellers faced. Their willingness to learn and engage was assuring. We hope to continue working with the judges in the context of the pre-sentence reports. Ms Sweeney shared her personal experiences at the conference, and I believe we will have an opportunity to hear them today. We are optimistic we might make some progress on non-custodial sentences for Travellers and community-based supports to address the underlying causes of Travellers’ offending behaviours.

Simply imprisoning people is a short-sighted solution. If people are incarcerated and released without any rehabilitation, they are likely to reoffend and we are just creating a very expensive revolving door, with people leaving prison more damaged than when they went in. We have to address the underlying causes for Travellers committing crimes and invest in support systems to help them resolve these issues. For those who are imprisoned, we must at least ensure prison does not cause further harm.