Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The language used in that report was instructive as to the State’s ideological approach to the Travelling community at the time. It is also instructive that no representatives of the Traveller community sat on the commission. The approach and recommendations found in the 1963 report of the Commission on Itinerancy remain deeply offensive to Travellers and, thankfully, are finally and rejected outright today.

While it is clear that formal recognition of Traveller ethnicity is not a magic wand for addressing the issues experienced by the Traveller community, it is nevertheless an important step towards righting a lot of the wrongs of the past. Today's declaration puts us as a nation on a new pathway. It opens the door to a new relationship with our fellow Irish nationals and co-equal citizens of the new ethnically recognised Irish Traveller community based on mutual respect requiring an awareness by those who administer State services and all of us from what is ofttimes referred to as the settled community, of the needs and rights of Traveller people.

I again commend the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, and the Minister of State, Deputy David Stanton. They listened and acted and we applaud their decision. As I stated at the launch of our committee’s report in the audiovisual room on 26 January, this must not be yet another false dawn for the Traveller community. It was not and it is not. It is a new dawn and due cause for celebration.

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