Ms Maria Joyce:

Can I come in there? If you look at the high levels of unemployment among Travellers, education may be one part of that. However, there is also wider racism and discrimination within employers. I am sure groups have been before the committee here highlighting some of those barriers and issues including racism in relation to access to the wider employment market for Travellers. It is a barrier.

I will also touch on some of those wider challenges and barriers in relation to education. We have had a history of segregation in relation to Travellers and the education system. Any of us who went through the education system in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and up to the 2000s very much experienced that history of segregation, whether in classroom settings or in the prefabs at the back of schools or even where whole schools themselves were Traveller only.

In the 1970s and 1980s, I experienced that segregated provision. It is not an exaggerated statement to make that the State has failed Travellers in relation to education. There are elements where that continues to happen. The still negative experiences of Traveller children in the education system directly impact whether they take on opportunities to complete second level and go into third level. The low expectations of Traveller children by teachers in the system - not all teachers but many teachers of Traveller children - also informs and influences the decisions they make. This is really important given the launch of the national Traveller and Roma education strategy by the Department just last year. We have spent decades as a national organisation alongside other national and local Traveller organisations trying to get the Department of Education to develop a Traveller education strategy. Much of that was blocked by individuals over the years. When there are good officials in there who actually want to do something, we had a strategy in a very short period. What is important now is the implementation of that strategy over the next number of years. Schools are instrumental. That is another area where we need more positive measures. We are seeing some measures in relation to Turn to Teaching to get Traveller and Roma teachers into the system but we need to see more of that. We also need to see what will keep them employed within the system. I have two teachers who recently qualified in my wider extended family. Both went into the system, one in secondary level and one at primary. They did not last because of the very negative experiences - the language and racism in the context of the language and how Traveller children were referred to were huge issues. They were deciding factors as to whether they were going to stay within the system as teachers. It is not only the importance of getting teachers into the system and Travellers into Tusla as an agency across all its strands including its social work element but also what measures are needed to keep it sustainable and keep them within the systems and in what they have trained to do.