Written answers

Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform

Report on Racism

9:00 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 535: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his plans to implement the recommendations contained in the Joint Committee on European Affairs report on racism against Roma people, published on 1 January 2010; and the initiatives that will be put in place. [1940/10]

Photo of John CurranJohn Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The report referred to by the Deputy focuses on the position of minority groups in Europe and contains an examination of Roma policies in the European Union.

The Roma Community in the Irish State is made up principally of persons of Romanian, Hungarian, Polish and Czech Republic origin, all of whom are EU Citizens and, as such, in terms of immigration controls, are covered by the provision of the European Community (Free movement of Persons) (No. 2) Regulations 2006. Such persons are not required to register their presence in the State.

There are no official statistics on the number of Roma in Ireland. Different figures have been mentioned, for example 3,000, which is approximately 0.07% of the population. This figure has been cited by the Roma support group. As acknowledged on Page 12 of the Joint Committee's report, Ireland has a robust equality infrastructure in place which includes measures to protect all residents from exploitation and discrimination.

As stated in the Joint Committee's Report, Ireland has ratified and provides periodic reports under the main International treaties that impact on discrimination including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. I recently submitted Ireland's Combined Third and Fourth State Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This is a comprehensive report outlining all of the measures which have been undertaken to combat discrimination and racism in Ireland in the last number of years. It is available on the website of my Office at www.integration.ie.

I support a mainstream approach to Integration and as such there are currently no Roma specific policies in place. The recommendations made by the Joint Committee will, however, be examined by my Office and will be borne in mind in the future work of the Office in this area.

In addition, I note that the Committee has sent the report to a number of Ministers and the Garda Commissioner.

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