Mr. Martin Ward:

No bother at all. I thank the Cathaoirleach very much for the invitation and the opportunity to speak here today.

Numerous research reports note the experiences of Travellers in regard to discrimination and racism. For example, the Traveller Community National Survey found that 52% of Travellers had experienced an obstacle to accessing employment and that 43% had encountered discrimination while accessing it. The issues Travellers experienced included discrimination because of identity; not meeting the required skill level; having to modify and hide identity when applying; and not getting employment as a result of being known as a Traveller.

In 2017, Behaviour and Attitudes surveyed the general population about their attitudes to a range of minority groups and found that Travellers, along with the Roma community, were the most discriminated against among a list of 12 minority groups. The findings revealed the extent of the discrimination. Only 17% of the general public said they would employ a member of the Traveller community. Only 15% of the public said they would welcome Travellers in friendship and only 25% said they would welcome Travellers as co-workers.

In 2017, Galway Traveller Movement knew the challenge faced and the big societal shift needed for Travellers to gain mainstream employment. At the time, there was an unemployment rate of 80%. There was a myth that Travellers did not want to work but the statistics showed otherwise. We founded our flagship social enterprise Bounce Back Recycling in that year. We started with three employees and now have 20, both Traveller men and Traveller women. We started delivering our services in County Galway and now deliver a nationwide selection of services to commercial clients and also to domestic householders in 13 counties. What we are trying to highlight is that anything is possible if you are given an opportunity. We have really busted the myth in Galway that Travellers do not want to work and have showcased what can be done.

We have tried to address the environmental impact of the disposal of 600,000 mattresses in Ireland every year. We are proud that we are reclaiming our community space as the original recyclers on the island and linking what we do to what has served the circular economy agenda for over 200 years through tinsmithing.

Bounce Back Recycling cannot be the only show in town and every Traveller should not have to become a recycler to gain employment. Therefore, we regard internships as having a key role. A Civil Service internship programme has been delivered across certain public sector sites since 2023. While this is welcome, it is imperative that public sector internship programmes that target members of the Traveller community be continued and scaled up to achieve an impact. Crucially, they must include progression to full-time employment as an outcome for participants, following their successful completion of the programme. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform should include in the design of all internship programmes the outcome of full-time employment for participants.

Many Travellers live in counties that are not urban and where there are few Civil Service employment opportunities. In these areas, there are public service employers, including local authorities, and these should all host internship programmes targeting Travellers. There are examples of good practice available, including the programmes delivered by South Dublin County Council in the mid-2000s.

To be fully inclusive, the public sector must be representative of the communities it serves. For Travellers, this means almost 1% of all employees should be from the Traveller community. This would amount to 3,700 public service employees. There are measures in place to improve the diversity of the public service, including the requirement to meet the public sector equality and human rights duty, the equality, diversity and inclusion focus of the Public Appointments Service and the remit of the Department of public expenditure. Quotas have been notable in the gender and disability areas under the duty but Travellers were not included in nested quotas within these and a general intersectional lens was not applied. A spokesperson for the Department told The Irish Times that its 2030 strategy aims to ensure the policy and service responses are focused on equality, inclusivity and accessibility.

For progress to be made, the following should happen. A set of clear targets should be established regarding Travellers’ employment in the public service to ensure progress is made towards a fully representative public service. Public service bodies should be required to undertake targeted recruitment drives and report on their progress towards inclusive recruitment practice for Travellers. An ethnic identifier should be put in place across the public sector and carried out in line with good practice. Staff training on equality, diversity and inclusion should include specific inputs on Travellers because, in our experience, this training does not cover all grounds of equality.

There are high-profile social enterprises that are Traveller led. These include Bounce Back Recycling, Bounce Back Upcycling and Shuttle Knit. For Traveller representative organisations, social enterprise has provided an opportunity for Travellers to claim the enterprise and employment space and create employment opportunities in light of labour market discrimination and racism.

However, supports for Traveller organisations to explore and develop social enterprise activity is limited. The resources required to research and develop an idea to the trading stage can be extensive and the criteria for accessing supports are unrealistic. We are delighted to say we receive funding in Galway from the Department of Rural and Community Development.

With the second national social enterprise policy, there is an opportunity to put in place adequate support for Traveller-led social enterprise development. This should include support to develop social enterprises from early-stage concept development to the trading stage. These supports should be developed in collaboration with existing Traveller-led social enterprises and Traveller organisations.

With regard to enterprise and employment services, Travellers often favour self-employment and micro and small enterprise development. The existing enterprise support programmes, provided through local development companies and local enterprise offices, must have a targeted aspect to their programmes to engage with Travellers. This could include gathering data on ethnicity, as outlined, and reporting on the ethnicity of those who apply for and receive the supports; putting in place Traveller-specific supports in collaboration with Traveller representative organisations, which could include ring-fencing mentor and other supports for Travellers or recruiting mentors from the Traveller community; and ensuring that existing mentors and staff are competent to provide a culturally appropriate service to members of the Traveller community.

On supports for employers and Traveller-specific initiatives, there are no Traveller-specific initiatives that provide information and guidance to employers who wish to develop inclusive Traveller employment practices. This is despite significant research that has identified the barriers to employment for Travellers and the need for public and private sector employers to address barriers in the workplace for Travellers.

In a 2017 Traveller survey, it was found that only three in ten people who have attended a training scheme gained employment as a result. There is a need for dedicated resources to support employers to implement positive action for Travellers in employment. Many of the initiatives I have noted will require support from Traveller representative organisations, but few have the resources to provide this support. The special initiative for Travellers was established in 2005 and was an ad hoc and limited resource, operating in only five areas since its establishment. There is some support for targeted and inclusive apprenticeships but there is a need for greater resources around employment. Funding should be made available for Traveller representative organisations to deliver supports to employers. This could be administered on a county or national basis to ensure a comprehensive suite of resources for private and public sector employers. Local resources are needed for needed for specific measures.

The following are our recommendations: a national Traveller employment and enterprise strategy that is fully resourced for implementation from the outset to ensure it delivers on targets that are ambitious and delivers positive impacts for the Traveller community; peer-led resources for Traveller organisations to support this area of work at local and national levels; and the full implementation of the national action plan on racism, this being to tackle the root cause of the high unemployment rate among Travellers. The national action plan needs adequate resources to have a meaningful impact for members of the Traveller community. A further recommendation is cross-departmental support and resources to address the legacy of the non-implementation of the recommendations of decades of reports and other recommendations, which has failed the Traveller community.