Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes.

I do not know whether this will surprise the Minister of State but for the past number of elections, a leaflet has gone around an estate in my constituency stating that Seán Crowe voted in favour of Traveller accommodation. It pops up at every election despite there never having been any problems from the Travellers in that accommodation. Nevertheless, this unsigned letter gets sent out. It originally was supposed to have come from a residents' association but it gives an idea of what goes on in some local authority areas and some electoral areas.

I hope this Private Members' debate will create some dynamic and positive action to improve the rights and social indicators of Travellers. As Deputy Ó Caoláin outlined, a report from the Economic and Social Research Institute shows that Travellers fare poorly on every indicator used to measure disadvantage, including unemployment, poverty, social inclusion or exclusion, health status, infant mortality, life expectancy, accommodation and living standards. Members are aware the Traveller community experienced savage cuts in recent years but was also affected by knock-on social spending cuts. When I was the Sinn Féin spokesperson for education, I raised with the Minister at the time, Deputy Quinn, the negative effect the withdrawal of 800 resource teachers for Travellers would have, as well as the loss of the visiting teacher service for Travellers. These cuts basically tore apart the Traveller education supports, which were replaced with absolutely nothing. There was no uproar, no editorials in the respectable newspapers and the issue disappeared. Traveller support was cut and no one kicked up a fuss.

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