Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his interest in this matter. I am aware that only for his initiative, none of this would have ever happened.

I also thank Senator Eileen Flynn for the work she did as Chair. She brought invaluable knowledge to this subject with her contribution and expertise that many of us who have not lived that experience lack. It was a great privilege to be Vice Chair of this committee, which worked across parties in a very cohesive and agreed fashion.

I say to all my friends in the Traveller community that reports do not get things done and they are only the first steps in laying out what needs to be done. There is much that must be done. As part of the work of this committee, we visited Labre Park, St. Margaret's Park and four sites in Galway. I was familiar with the sites in Galway but I was not familiar with the other sites. I can speak to the public realm or exteriors of the properties and but I cannot talk about conditions inside those properties. On the exteriors, the nearest comparison I can make is to Soweto in South Africa, and we think we live in a First World country.

It is fair to say, as has been highlighted, that the traditional approach of a Government to this is that it is a problem to be solved. I have always seen Travellers as a community to be cherished and we must give real equality to that community. A comprehensive survey was done on attitudes on pluralism and diversity in Ireland. That professional work was published by Dr. Micheál Mac Gréil, a sociologist in Maynooth, in 2011 as part of a long series where he could tell us the attitude towards every group in Irish society. It is interesting that he dedicates the book as follows: "This book is dedicated to the emancipation of the Travelling people, Ireland's indigenous ethnic minority". One of the most striking statistics was as follows. With the Traveller people, the results are good and bad. On one hand, a considerable minority, 18.2%, would refuse citizenship to Travellers. On the other hand, tolerance towards Travellers is indicated by an increasing number of people who would welcome a Traveller into their family.

Let us consider the first figure, which at 18% means that nearly one in five people we meet in the street believes Travellers should not have citizenship. Half of those feel they should be deported. Those are scientific data and reading the totality of the book and our attitude towards various nationalities around the world, one sees that the group we respect least are an indigenous group.

The other point that is absolutely extraordinary concerns demographics. In the population as a whole, approximately 27% are in the group of people aged one to 19 but in Travellers that is 52%. How are there so many young people in the Traveller communities? It is because there are so few older people when compared with the rest of society. If we consider people aged between 60 and 79, the figure for society in general is 12.6% but in the Traveller community it is 3.7%. That is approximately a quarter of the percentage for society as a whole. If we consider people aged over 80, the figure for society in general is 2.7% but it is 0.3% for the Traveller community, or a tenth, give or take, of the percentage for society in general.

Do I believe those figures are true? Do I believe these attitudes are still valid in our society? Yes, I do. Some time ago a house was purchased by Galway City Council for Travellers who had been living in the county area for over 20 years. Mysteriously, in the middle of the night it was burned down. When the council went to rebuild the house, there were all sorts objections lodged in the planning process. That tells us something about the prevailing attitudes.

There is much work to be done and we cannot afford to be sitting on it. As the Chairperson indicated in her foreword, over the years there have been numerous reports and studies produced that have highlighted the extreme difficulties and challenges faced by the Traveller community. Unfortunately, it is clear they have not succeeded in improving conditions in Traveller lives. When we wrote the report, it was not for debating but for action.

I commend the Ceann Comhairle on his comments and I look forward to having a standing committee. We must be on this every week because new matters will arise that we have not covered in this report. Otherwise we will not see change. I have been 30 years in politics and I have worked on this matter but do I see much change? Do I still see people in my constituency in totally unacceptable accommodation? The answer is "yes". Do I see people who cannot get replacement caravans because the city council has stated it can only afford its share of four of them, despite 20 or 25 of them in absolutely disgraceful conditions? As I have often asked, would you sleep in a freezing caravan that is damp every night of the week just because somebody in this very wealthy State has said the council can only afford four of them this year?

We have much work to do. The Oireachtas has work to do. It is time we did it and dealt with the way society has treated Travellers. From experience, I know it is time for us not only to have a lead Minister with clout with responsibility for Traveller matters but that Minister should have a dedicated fund, similar to what is being given to the islands, for example. If somebody in another Department is not doing the required job, that Minister should be able to step up with a fund, intervene and make it happen. The time for prevarication and delay is over. It is now a time for action. I hope this report will result not in more debate but in action to improve lives. That is the kind of action I have not yet seen in my time in politics.

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