Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the debate and thank him for being here. We area facilitating the requests of Senators Warfield and Kelleher in having this debate and it is an important one. I speak as a former member of Cork City Council and a former chairperson of the Traveller accommodation committee. I opted to chair that committee because I believe in the integrity and value of all of us, as citizens, in a republic.

The Library and Research Service in Leinster House often produces papers and one of its Spotlight publications included an anonymous quote from a 2010 UCD report:

I am a Traveller and the fact that me children have never lived in a house is one thing about them. Like even though they've never travelled a day in their life, they're still Travellers.

These are people. They are citizens who, in a republic, deserve the help of the arms of the State, notwithstanding the ESRI report that was referenced earlier. An underspend of €55 million by any local authority is unacceptable.We heard on the Order of Business today about the Rebuilding Ireland home loan, about which people were jumping up and down, even though it is not gone. However, we do not see the same call for accountability regarding this lack of spend of €55 million. Is it that officials do not want to spend the money? Is it that they have not taken a Traveller accommodation plan and put it before councils as part of their city and county development plan? Is it that elected members do not want to spend?

The Minister of State said in Galway that a mindset needs to be changed and I would add that a cultural change needs to take place in our country. One of my earliest memories as a child was of Mrs. O'Driscoll from Bandon calling and my mother bringing her in for tea and allowing her to use the phone. To us, it was normal integration. There was no big master plan. It was lived integration. I remember canvassing in the 2016 general election and I met her in a nursing home in Douglas. It was as if long lost friends had met. Thankfully, there are still families today and people like Senator Kelleher who espouse that integration in the real, tangible sense.

People get apoplectic about Peter Casey but it is easy to do that. What we must do is to take what he said and put it into the operation of Traveller plans of integration and of working. Senator Kelleher spoke about halting sites in Cork, some of which are an absolute disgrace. I welcome the change that has taken place in Ellis's Yard. I hope that, as a consequence of action, we can ensure a cross-departmental approach to education, social protection, labour affairs, health and housing, and that we can drive change and have people go to college. The women in the Traveller Visibility Group in Cork have to be commended on what they have done. They have challenged the mindset of the male in the Traveller community to aim for a bit better, although that is probably the wrong phrase, and to aspire for their kids to continue in education and to be able to have what they perhaps did not have for a variety of reasons. It is important that we take the work Senator Kelleher is doing and that we change minds in the Oireachtas as well. It is very easy to have a debate but it is also about the policy implementation afterwards.

As a Minister of State and in the many different aspects of what he does in the Department, Deputy English drives change and he is a catalyst for new beginnings. That is why the review group he has set up is welcome. It is a step in the right direction. As he said, it will come back with four or five different outcomes that are tangible, manageable and deliverable, which is what we want. Senator Wilson spoke on the Order of Business about the importance of Youthreach. It is equally important, as the Minister of State said in his speech, that we deliver a different type of model to deliver in housing and education. The tragedy of Carrickmines struck a chord with the nation and we have to learn from that.

The expert panel repot will be the next beginning. The inconsistency in the delivery of services must be consigned to the past. That is what the legacy of this debate and that report must and should be.