Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee members, and particularly the chair, Senator Flynn, for their comprehensive report which raises many key issues and makes a number of really important recommendations which will require work across all Departments and agencies of the State. Travellers in Ireland have faced, and continue to face, systemic racism. I will take this opportunity to reaffirm my commitment and the commitment of the Government to ensuring equality for Travellers and their full and equal participation in Irish life. We have an obligation across Government to eradicate the barriers that exist to that full and equal participation.

The national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy, NTRIS, operates from my Department and provides a framework for action on Traveller and Roma issues and represents a whole-of-government approach, bringing together Government agencies, Departments, members of the Traveller and Roma communities and the NGOs that work with them. The programme for Government commits to a review of NTRIS. That is something all of us on the NTRIS steering committee are very conscious of. The one thing that has been said throughout my time in office has been that we need to move from glossy policies to implementation. There is no good in having a brand new education strategy if the number of Traveller children completing secondary education has not increased. There is no good in having a glossy policy document on Traveller accommodation if the number of Traveller-specific accommodation units is not increasing dramatically. The next NTRIS has to be about measurable actions and delivery. It is very important that actions are measurable. The work that Senator Flynn and the committee have brought together will be really influential in the development of the next NTRIS. I am happy to continue to engage with Senator Flynn and the team of Deputies and Senators who worked with her on a quarterly basis or however often they wish to see where we are on the 84 actions so that we can start seeing delivery. I can use the NTRIS subcommittee to chase up Departments with regard to their implementation.

The report highlighted 84 areas covering a wide range of issues. I will now speak to three key areas: accommodation, health and education. With regard to housing, I know that the committee dedicated several meetings to the issue of Traveller accommodation and engaged with the Ombudsman for Children on the report, No End in Site. The findings of that report were incredibly hard to read and made clear that improvements in the provision of appropriate accommodation must continue. In March of this year, the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, met with the NTRIS steering committee and we had a detailed discussion on the issue of Traveller accommodation. As Senators will know, the expert group to review the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 and other legislation published a report in July 2019. This report included 32 recommendations. A programme board is in place within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to secure the implementation of those key recommendations. Traveller organisations are involved in the oversight of delivery of those key changes.

Senators Higgins and McGreehan and others raised the key issue of data. In that regard, the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, has informed us that there is now a Traveller ethnicity identifier included on the social housing support form. We are starting to see the roll-out of that ability to monitor data. My Department is working with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on a broader national equality data strategy to allow us access to disaggregated data and information with regard to the take-up of health, education and housing services among the Traveller community and other minority communities.

Senator Higgins set out the challenges with regard to education for Travellers. In conjunction with the Department of Education, my Department is working on a number of pilot programmes to target Traveller attendance and school completion. The teams operating these pilot programmes are working with parents, children, young people, schools and the local Traveller and Roma communities. The programmes are under way in Galway, Wexford, Dublin and Cork and have been extended in light of the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. Ensuring that Travellers have full access to the education system is paramount in light of the impact that access to education has on a person's life, potential and ability to access employment. I am aware that, while Traveller education outcomes have improved in recent years, educational attainment among Travellers continues to lag significantly behind that of the general population.Undoubtedly, the impact of Covid has exacerbated that and has widened that gap. The digital divide is something we must be acutely conscious of. I am working together with the Minister for Education and the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on the Traveller education strategy that is promised in the programme for Government. It is important that work is also being done in my Department on early years education and the access of Traveller children to the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme. There is reduced take-up of the scheme among Traveller children. That means that the education gap begins and is built in even before the first day of primary school. We have to work to reverse that.

The issue of healthcare was addressed by many Senators. I am acutely aware of the difficulties faced by the Traveller community when it comes to accessing health services and mental health services in particular. We know that members of the Traveller community die younger, have more illnesses and are at greater risk of being affected by substance misuse and mental health difficulties. The Government has committed to publishing a national Traveller health action plan. I am informed that the plan will be published in September 2022. Indeed, we have engaged with Senator Flynn on the matter. The plan aims to address the specific health needs of Travellers, including physical, mental and social well-being. It will use a social determinants approach. The national Traveller health action plan will assist with improving Travellers' right to healthcare and the commitment and prioritisation of the provision of funding to expand and strengthen the primary healthcare for Traveller projects. It will also address the need for the culturally safe and appropriate provision of healthcare for Travellers. HSE annual expenditure on Traveller- and Roma-specific health initiatives is in the region of €10 million, currently. Of that, €350,000 is dedicated to the provision of mental health services specifically. We all recognise that this funding must increase. The national action plan forms a basis within which that increase can be delivered. Within my own Department, we are providing additional funding to Traveller organisations for two particular services, the Traveller mediation service and the Traveller counselling service. I am aware of the really strong work that those services do on a localised basis in supporting members of their own community.

I have had the opportunity to outline progress in some areas. However, as I said at the outset, Travellers in Ireland have faced and continue to face systemic racism. There is so much more that must be done across the areas I have outlined and those outlined more broadly in the report. It is something that all of us in government, across the Oireachtas and in all elements of the State must act on and work together to address.