Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In all my time as an activist and working with poor women, I never heard them speak about period poverty. A lot of the time we can use poor women to kick cans down the road, so I encourage the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, to focus on issues such as housing and childcare as well, and perhaps speak to the poor women who are living in poverty. That could be a very good starting point.

I will move on to a very important issue. In Ireland in 2022, Traveller children in secondary schools are being given primary school work. These are children of 15 and 16 years of age. They have the best of academic skills, emotional skills, reading and writing skills and so forth, yet they are being given crosswords and colouring pages. Some people might want to laugh at that but I, as a member of the Traveller community, find it extremely sad that we are still living in an Ireland where this is acceptable behaviour. First, I want to know who is held responsible. None of us knows. No Member of the House knows who is held responsible for the failure of Traveller education. I call for the Minister to come to the House not for a Commencement matter but for a discussion on Traveller education with all Members and to let us know who is held accountable.

I could not say that these children are being treated unequally in our society if I could not stand by it. Two years ago today, I stood in this Chamber for the first time as a Member of this House and I spoke about the inequalities that are happening in the Traveller community. Two years later, I know that those young Traveller children could go on to be doctors, nurses, barristers, solicitors, Deputies or local politicians. There is what we have to do as a society and in our education system. Not all teachers are bad, but there is a minority of teachers who will just give the Traveller child the colouring-in work at the age of 16 years. As a young Traveller woman said, she will be leaving school anyway because she is 16 years old and she will not have to face the shame of getting this type of work at 16 years of age.

Our children are being stereotyped whereby the men will go off and work with their fathers and the women will go off and get married. This is not true for the majority of members of the Traveller community. I am asking teachers to stop stereotyping our children and to support them to be better than even they believe themselves to be. I strongly encourage that in our education system. It is 2022. I want a better life for my two children and for the days of children being put to the back of the class to colour in pictures to be over.

I would appreciate if the Deputy Leader would organise an emergency debate on Traveller education because this is an emergency issue.