irische traveller in deutschland 2021

New research shows Irish Travellers were racially abused and marginalised following controversial Channel 4 Dispatches programme

New research by charity the Traveller Movement, shows Gypsies and Irish Travellers were racially abused and criminally stereotyped following a Channel 4 programme which first aired in April of last year.  

Dispatches: the Truth about Traveller Crime first aired on the 16th of April 2020 and was roundly condemned by activists and leading anti-racism campaigners as racist and  dehumanising . Ofcom, the broadcast regulator received nearly a thousand complaints, including a  statement  from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  

The report published Wednesday the 12th of May aims to highlight some of the damage caused to Gypsies and Irish Travellers in the aftermath of the programme. The report entitled Travellers and Crime? Reflections on the Channel 4 documentary and criminal stereotyping aims to centre the voices of those directly impacted by the Channel 4 programme and by anti-Traveller stereotyping more widely.  

The report provides ample evidence of the pervasive discrimination Gypsies, Roma and Travellers face and the ways in which this discrimination is created and perpetuated by the media. 68 responses in total were received and explored everything from the immediate fall out to the programme, the everyday experience of anti-Traveller racism, as well as Travellers’ experiences of reporting crime to the police.  

Of the 74% of respondents who watched the programme, many expressed disbelief, feelings of unfairness, and fear.  

‘Quite worrying that a mainstream TV channel can get away with awful stereotyping of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in the country. Total sensationalism and racist.’ 

Another respondent remarked on the direct harmful impact the show had on their relationship with a neighbour:   

‘Since the filming my neighbour’s have started giving me abuse again, and my windows have been smashed in.’ 

When discussing the criminal stereotypes forced upon Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people most respondents discussed scapegoating and the negative portrayal of Travellers in the media. 

‘They hear bad stories in local press and spread rumors. Folks love a bogey man!’ 

The report makes wide ranging recommendations for the media, the police and for Ofcom.  

Ofcom’s ongoing investigation    

Despite Ofcom receiving nearly a thousand complaints, including a letter signed nearly 8,000 times, it has yet to publish the findings from its investigation.  

 In response to a parliamentary question about what was causing the delay, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport John Whittingdale MP stated "Ofcom is the UK’s independent regulator of television. Decisions on broadcasting regulation, including the duration of their investigations, are a matter for Ofcom" 

 Commenting on the report, CEO of the Traveller Movement Yvonne MacNamara said: t his report shows the immense distress and hurt caused by the Dispatches programme to Gypsies and Travellers. Ofcom opened its investigation on the 29th of May 2020, yet here we are twelve months later and still without a clear indication of when that investigation will end. Where’s Ofcom? We are losing faith in our broadcast regulator and its ability to do its job.  

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Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 3 Mar 2022

Vol. 1019 No. 2

Committee Report on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community: Statements

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Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Malcolm Noonan)

I apologise on behalf of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, as he cannot attend. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gcomhchoiste as an tuarascáil thábhachtach. I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, on the important report on key issues affecting the Traveller community. I thank the committee members and its Chair, Senator Eileen Flynn, for their comprehensive report, which raises many key issues and also makes several important recommendations that will involve work across several Departments. The Minister had good engagement with the committee in November and is aware that it consulted Traveller and Roma groups widely, in addition to Departments and other interested stakeholders.

The issue of intersectionality also needs to be addressed more coherently. We know, for instance, that the issues facing Traveller women and girls are different from those facing Traveller men and boys. In this context, we need to see how the successor strategy to the national strategy for women and girls can work in tandem with NTRlS's successor strategy to focus on particular issues for Traveller women and girls. The strategy committee's role will be pivotal in developing the consultation process and the content for the successor strategy. The successor strategy will not represent change for the sake of change. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, will listen carefully to stakeholders to ascertain what they advise. The advice provided by Traveller and Roma organisations will directly shape the scope and focus of the next strategy. The recommendations contained in the report of the special Oireachtas committee will also inform the next iteration of NTRIS. The support of all Departments will be crucial in ensuring the successor strategy will have a more outcomes-focused approach.

The Chair will know that both of us have worked with the Traveller community in our constituencies for many years. Based on my having read the summary recommendations of the report, I commend the committee's Chairman, Senator Flynn, and its members on what is a really comprehensive report with a targeted and focused set of actions to be implemented. In a speech I made following the issuing of the No End in Site report of the Ombudsman for Children's Office, I said that among Traveller families I know in my community and my Traveller friends, it is accepted that little, if anything, will ever change. Now and then, there is a breakthrough when we celebrate someone going to third level education but these events are rare. In that regard, it is critical that we address the findings of the report at a whole-of-government level and right across the Houses of the Oireachtas and work with all partner agencies and the Traveller and Roma communities to achieve the transformation. I feel very strongly about it.

We see persistent discrimination, including at political level when there is intervention in housing allocations. We see Traveller families, particularly young Travellers, hiding themselves from view rather than celebrating their heritage and culture. As Minister of State with responsibility for heritage, I worked with the Heritage Council to develop the post of an intercultural heritage officer whose job would be to work with the Traveller and Roma communities. We saw some really positive outcomes of that during Heritage Week last year. I really feel that part of the process will involve focusing on celebrating Traveller culture, heritage and music. In many ways, the Traveller community saved a lot of Irish traditional music through the oral tradition and language and its really deep traditions. From this perspective, we need to tackle collectively the discrimination that takes place at every level in society. The outcomes for young Travellers have not changed all that much in 20 years in this country. We see this in housing, educational attainment and mental health.

Report after report has recommended the way forward in the context of how we try to address this matter. I feel that very little is changing in a real sense. The Government is deeply committed to trying to resolve these issues. People across this House are deeply committed to trying to resolve it with the Traveller community.

I welcome the report. I thank Senator Flynn and the members of the committee for the work that they put into it. I hope that we can constructively work together to try to address the discrimination and the life outcomes for the Traveller and Roma communities in Ireland.

Senator Eileen Flynn

I thank the Minister of State for taking the time out to allow me to address the House. I thank Deputies for the opportunity and for allowing me to be here on what is a historical day. I welcome my little girl, Billie, who is in the Gallery. Just before I came into the Chamber, one of the ushers told me that I should remember that I am not here for nothing and that I am here because I deserve to be here. I thought that was a lovely comment for him to make when I was coming in.

I want to start by speaking about the report. That is more important than me being invited to speak in the Chamber today. It is about the report. I thank Deputies for inviting me to address the House today on what I hope will be a life-changing report for many Travellers. The final report of the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community is the work of many. Most importantly, however, the report was inspired by contributions from Travellers. National and local Traveller organisations and activists dedicated ourselves to many battles on the future for the Traveller community to ensure it has more equality of opportunity in Irish society.

I was elected Chairperson of the joint committee on 19 November 2020. Deputy Ó Cuív was elected Vice Chairman. I thank Deputy Ó Cuív again for all of his hard work and determination in working with us in the Traveller community over many years. The committee was built on the important work of the previous committee, chaired by former Senator Colette Kelleher. The committee made 84 recommendations in four areas, namely: health, including physical and mental health; education, particularly second and third level education; employment; and accommodation. If the recommendations in this report are implemented, and I believe they must be, the committee and all of us in the Dáil and the Seanad will be part of ensuring a better future for Travellers. That is something for us to be very proud of.

Before I speak any further on the report, I would like to formally welcome to the Gallery representatives from the Irish Network Against Racism, the Irish Traveller Movement, AkiDwA, Pavee Point, the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, the Muslim Sisters of Éire, the Amal Women's Association, the National Traveller Mental Health Network, Exchange House and the National Traveller Women's Forum. I believe that civil society organisations play a key role in society. I thank the organisations represented for their work and for being here today. I also thank my husband, Liam Whyte, and my friend, Damien Peelo, for being in the Gallery to support me in giving this speech today.

As I said, the joint committee's report includes 84 recommendations on four critical areas. The vast majority of the recommendations are not new. They just have not been implemented. We are looking for inclusive education and delivered health services, particularly in relation to mental health. We have all seen that the authorities have not provided appropriate Traveller accommodation. Oversight structures must be put in place and implemented to ensure that safe and culturally appropriate accommodation is provided for Travellers and families. We have been asking for these consistently. As the Minister of State said, over the years there have been many reports that highlighted the challenges that Travellers face in these areas, including the Oireachtas report. We are still here today discussing the recommendations. I cannot say enough in this speech how important and key the implementation of recommendations is. At the time of the launch of the report, Deputy Ó Cuív and I said that nothing will change unless the recommendations are implemented. Most importantly, a lack of action will mean the loss of hope for many Travellers and generations to come.

I almost hesitate to mention some of the recommendations because they are all very important. Still, some provide structure for change and will finally bring Travellers the services and support that we deserve as a community. We must establish a national Traveller accommodation authority to oversee the development and implementation of Traveller accommodation policy. The current system, whereby local authorities provide accommodation for Travellers, too often has not worked for Travellers. Time and time again, we see local authorities underspend on their allocated funding for the Traveller community. Between 2018 and 2019, there was an underspend of more than €72 million in local authorities in funding for Traveller accommodation. Yet the needs of Travellers regarding accommodation remain as serious as ever. Who will be held to account for families who are living in overcrowded or unsafe accommodation or who are homeless? The call for a national Traveller accommodation authority has been made many times over the years. The call was also made by the Traveller accommodation expert review group in 2019. The Minister committed to it then. Now, it is time to see it through.

What I will say next is the most important part of this whole speech, and it must be listened to and heard in this House. Young Travellers within the Traveller community are dying by suicide every day. There must be a stand-alone national Traveller mental health strategy with a ring-fenced budget. There must be a clear timeline of implementation and delivery for it. We need a Traveller mental health steering group that is run in partnership with stakeholders and, most importantly, with Travellers. The recommendation that a national Traveller mental health strategy should be developed and implemented is not new. The Government promised a national Traveller mental health strategy in the programme for Government. Only a stand-alone strategy will turn the tide on the Traveller mental health crisis.

I was delighted and proud last year to see the Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill 2018 be passed by the Dáil thanks to my colleague, Deputy Pringle. I thank the former Senator Colette Kelleher and my Civil Engagement Group colleagues for bringing it through the Seanad. That Bill is now on Committee Stage. The Bill must be implemented as soon as possible. Not only must it be implemented, but it must be representative of the Traveller community. It must be implemented in our Irish education system as soon as possible.

The fourth important recommendation of the report is to ensure that we continue to move forward the commitments and the recommendations that the Houses of the Oireachtas made through the committee established to oversee the issues faced by Travellers. This includes monitoring implementation and recommendations, and delivering a follow-up strategy to the national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy, as well as looking at other areas that impact on Travellers' lives. We cannot just live in hope that things will get better for the Traveller community. We have to implement the recommendations that are already there.

When I was thinking about what I would say today, I thought of the great John Hume, who spoke gracefully of the vital importance of people working together for a better future. I am a strong believer in solidarity and allyship. I base my activism around it.

Deputy Denise Mitchell

I welcome the report. I thank the Chairman of the committee, Senator Flynn, as well as the Vice Chairman, Deputy Ó Cuív, and the staff of the committee for the time and effort they put into it. I also wish to thank the members of the Travelling community in Dublin, Cork and Galway for welcoming us into their communities and homes and being so generous with their time. I welcome our visitors in the Public Gallery.

This report contains 84 recommendations across the areas of health, education, housing and employment. The Acting Chairman is probably happy to know that I do not have time to speak to all those sections, but my colleagues will touch on some of the recommendations later. There are 18 recommendations relating to housing. Recommendations 68 to 71, inclusive, highlight the need for a national audit of living conditions and safety concerns on all Traveller-specific sites. These must be addressed. On one of my visits, Deputy Joan Collins and I met a man who invited us into his home. When we went in, the man had to advise us where to stand because the floors were ready to give way. The windows were rattling. There was mould and damp all over his home. The sockets were burnt out. Would any of the Members present live in those conditions? The man told us all he wanted was somewhere safe to which he could bring his grandchildren.

Recommendation 74 suggests that a national Traveller accommodation body should be established to oversee Traveller accommodation policy. Traveller organisations have been calling for this for years. The committee heard from many witnesses who spoke about discrimination faced by the Traveller community in trying to access housing. There is no doubt that is why they are over-represented in the homeless figures. The State has an appalling history in delivering culturally appropriate accommodation for Travellers. We have seen council budgets go unspent even though there was an obvious need for accommodation. Local authorities must do much more to deliver on this.

In the section on education, recommendations 22 and 23 point to the need for the restoration of Traveller funding in the context of education. That funding was cut in 2011 and 2012. The report recommends that targeted resources be made available for Traveller children in mainstream education. The Minister, Deputy Foley, needs to make sure the Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill 2018 is enacted. We require a national Traveller education strategy, as suggested in recommendation 24 and 32.

The Government needs to implement this report. It cannot sit on a shelf, gathering dust like all other reports. The Government has a duty of care to the Traveller community across all Departments. I believe this report is an opportunity for it to fulfil that duty.

Deputy Mark Ward

In 2019, when I was mayor of South Dublin County Council, I launched a report on Traveller mental health by the Clondalkin Travellers development group. The report found that nearly 80% of Travellers surveyed in south Dublin stated either they or someone in their family had suffered from depression. This compares with just 8% of the general population. The report identified the factors impacting negatively on Traveller mental health as loneliness, discrimination, drug addiction, family break-up, children's mental health and financial hardships. Why do I mention that? It is 2022 and the findings of the report before the House show that very little has changed since 2019. I acknowledge the work of the Oireachtas committee in producing the report. In particular, I thank the Chairman, Senator Flynn, my colleagues Deputies Ellis and Mitchell, and the Vice Chairman, Deputy Ó Cuív.

The report outlines there is a crisis in mental health in the Traveller community. I note that 90% of Travellers agreed that mental health problems were common in their community, with suicide being the cause of 11% of Traveller deaths. I will repeat that. Suicide is the cause of 11% of Traveller deaths. That is seven times higher than the rate among the general population. While we can all get lost in statistics, behind each one of those percentages there is a man, woman or child with hopes, dreams and aspirations just like anybody else. As Senator Flynn stated, we need a national strategy for Traveller mental health and we need to have all the underpinning requirements in that strategy.

The report outlines the causes and conditions affecting mental health within the Traveller community. Travellers experience racism and exclusion daily. Deficient and substandard living conditions such as those referred to by Deputy Mitchell, as well as precarious accommodation and homelessness, have a severe detrimental impact on mental health. Lower educational outcomes have a damaging impact on employment opportunities, while chronic unemployment then leads to negative consequences on mental health.

In my previous role, which involved working with people from marginalised communities, I had a lot of engagement with Exchange House. It delivers mental health supports in a culturally appropriate way to the Traveller community. One of the recommendations of the report is that increased funding should be provided for the delivery of peer-led Traveller-specific mental health supports through the Traveller primary healthcare team. I know the work the Traveller primary healthcare team does in my area. It is one of the unsung groups that were not recognised during Covid. It was at the forefront, going into the Traveller community to deliver healthcare and advice, including in respect of Covid, and it needs to be recognised for that.

We also need projects in local areas to provide timely interventions in the context of poor Traveller mental health.

Early intervention is key. We need to have things in place for young Traveller men and women in respect of suicide prevention, as has been mentioned. I am a bit like Senator Flynn, as I am a wheeler-dealer and she has my word that I will be putting my name to this report. I congratulate her and all of our colleagues again on such a fabulous report.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I will start by thanking Senator Flynn and all of the members on the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community for both their hard work and for this very important report. I would also like to acknowledge the fact the Government gave time to Senator Flynn to speak with us today. I hope this is not the last time that she speaks on this issue on behalf of the Government. If she got to speak on its behalf more often, Traveller public policy would be in a much better place.

I acknowledge the hard work of all of the organisations, including Traveller, equality and anti-racist groups, in the Gallery because if it were not for their work, many of the issues that we are talking about today would not be in the public arena at all. I hope the Government acknowledges and continues to fund them and to increase their funding.

As my party’s housing spokesperson, I want to clearly say that I put my name to every single one of the 18 recommendations specifically relating to accommodation in the report, and in doing so I put the name of our party. They are eminently sensible, most of them are not new and they should be implemented as a matter of urgency.

There is a problem, however, because many years ago the Government commissioned a report on Traveller accommodation. Professor Michelle Norris undertook the study on behalf of the Housing Agency and it was published in 2017. That led to the formation of another group, the expert group on Traveller accommodation in 2018, and almost three years ago it made 32 separate recommendations to Government to tackle the very issues that this report, which we are discussing today, identifies. The overwhelming majority of those recommendations have not been implemented. There is no point in us sitting here today calling for the implementation of the recommendations of the new report when the outstanding recommendations in its predecessor remain on the shelf. In fact, some of the most substantive recommendations of that report are not even in the pipeline. We have to deal with Part 8 planning applications and with section 183 land transfers and ensure that Traveller accommodation programmes have a statutory binding implementation plan. We need an agency above the local authorities and independent of Government to ensure that where local authorities and Government are in dereliction of their plans, then responsibility for implementation of those plans is transferred to that agency to ensure their full implementation.

In the few seconds I have left I want to speak briefly about the spending on Traveller accommodation. I acknowledge that under the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, for two years in a row the Traveller accommodation budget has been spent in full. That is new, is welcome and deserves credit. The problem is that the budget is too small and the money that is being spent is not tackling the core issues. If one looks at the most recent figures of the Department, a tiny number of new units of Traveller-specific accommodation have been delivered while a large number of local authorities are still spending nothing on either upgrading existing facilities or on providing new facilities. We do not, therefore, just need the legislative policy changes but we need a commitment from Government to dramatically increase the funding for the direct provision of culturally appropriate Traveller accommodation. If the Government does that, it will have willing partners and supporters on these sides of the benches.

An Ceann Comhairle

I call Deputy Lahart who I believe is sharing with Deputy Leddin.

Deputy John Lahart

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak today. I congratulate Senator Flynn not only on her contribution to the report but on her contribution to the Seanad.

In no particular order, I was struck by a number of things. I served as a county councillor on South Dublin County Council along with Deputies Ward and Ó Broin, although I was there before either of them. As such I was very fortunate to work under one of the most exemplary public servants on this issue and other issues, the late Joe Horan, who was chief executive of that council and transformed it in so many ways. The reason I think of him was that one of the points raised here was about public bodies doing more in regard to the employment of Travellers. The late Mr. Horan led the way on that. It was not just in respect of Travellers but those with disabilities also. He always did more than was required of him under law as a chief executive in employing percentages of both in the council. They were visible and worked in County Hall in Tallaght. There is a beautiful park, Seán Keating Garden, adjacent to Rathfarnham Castle commemorating the life of this artist who was quite active in painting on behalf of the State and left an artistic legacy behind him, particularly in places like Ballyroan church and in other areas. All of the masonry work carried out in Seán Keating Garden, which I would invite anybody who is passing Rathfarnham Castle to visit, was carried out by members of the Traveller community who were employed by South Dublin County Council. South Dublin County Council is unique in that regard.

There are, to the best of my knowledge, no Travellers employed in the Houses of the Oireachtas but I could be wrong. One could go far to find Travellers employed in any Government Department. If Joe Horan could do it in South Dublin County Council, there is no reason every chief executive of every local authority in this country could not do it. That is a challenge and something I will sign up to. It is one of the points that has been made.

On living conditions, there is a particular Traveller accommodation in my constituency which I visited just before the Covid-19 pandemic. It has one of the best views of Dublin and is on the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. There are ten homes there but only five of them were occupied at the time that I visited for reasons beyond my understanding. The people who live in that accommodation are denied that view of Dublin Bay, Dublin city, the Pigeon House and all of the other sites one can see because of the fortress wall built around it. For the ten or 15 minutes I was there, I must say that I felt quite claustrophobic. I asked our director of housing in South Dublin County Council, another very good man, would he not consider creating some kind of visual gaps in this wall so that when people walk out of the front door in the morning, they are not just looking at masonry but have a wider view to take in.

Many people are going to dwell on particular points in the report but I just want to make a point about different local authorities carrying out and fulfilling their responsibilities. In South Dublin County Council, since I was elected in 1999, all of the councillors - it was a 26-member body then - tended to stick together and support each other when it came to the provision of Traveller accommodation and as a result there was a good and balanced spread of Traveller accommodation in each and every electoral ward in the county. We tended to spend the budget that was given to us. That was not and is not the same in adjacent counties. One of the scandals that was referred to earlier, but obviously it is changing, is of local authorities not spending the allocated amount they are given for Traveller accommodation.

One of the things I would like noted is that a local authority cannot do this by itself but it can assist settled residential communities by providing a framework and structure for both of these communities to meet because they never meet and yet their children meet and play together in school and do all of the things children do in school. The adult communities, however, never meet and there is a real fear, bias and stereotyping that prevents them from meeting. It is only through meeting and communicating that those stereotypes and biases will be broken down.

I remember bringing this to a service we have in south Dublin, South Dublin County Mediation Service, as a particular issue had arisen, and the service was very enthusiastic about playing a particular role and getting involved in this.

I see Deputy Leddin has arrived and I was speaking as though all of the time was mine. My apologies to my colleague for that. There are things I wanted to say around the mental health piece and so on but the point I wish to finish on is the Joe Horan piece. If we had more chief executives in charge of county councils like the late Joe Horan, Travellers would be in a much better position as would society.

Deputy Brian Leddin

I thank Deputy Lahart. First, I welcome the Chairperson of the committee, Senator Flynn, to the House. She is an activist, a fighter for human rights and a role model not just for the Traveller community but for all society. I welcome the visitors in the Visitors Gallery. Senator Flynn spoke very eloquently. I was watching the proceedings in my office and watched and heard the round of applause. It was very well deserved. She has produced a report that gets through to people like me, who are not of her community and who are privileged in our society. From my reading of the report so far, and I will get through all of it, that is a fundamental success of the report. I also commend the committee. I understand it is a very hard-working committee. Under Senator Flynn's guidance the committee conducted extensive research, visited sites around the country and engaged with stakeholders in the production of the report.

From my reading of the report, I can see that Travellers have been moved to the edges of our society. They have been physically separated and socially excluded. They have been excluded from policy and decision-making on issues that affect them. They have been subject to persistent disadvantage and segregation. The road to formal recognition was long, and the official recognition as an indigenous ethnic minority in 2017 was long overdue. The progress to full inclusion and acceptance of Traveller identity and culture in this country is slow. As Senator Flynn said, there have been numerous reports and studies produced which have highlighted the difficulties and challenges faced by the Traveller community. Unfortunately, it is clear that these have not succeeded in improving conditions in Travellers' lives. I believe this report, by making that point, will have an effect because Senator Flynn has captured that fundamental failure in how we have treated Travellers in this society since the foundation of the State.

I read the executive summary. I do not have time to go into it now, but it is incredibly compelling. I encourage everybody to read it. It is stark. I could go on about the shorter life expectancy of Travellers, the suicide rates, the low educational attainment and the underspend of local authorities, at €72 million in the last decade. This points to a fundamental failure of our society to help the Traveller community to integrate, succeed and flourish. As I do not have any more time, I will conclude.

In response to Deputy Lahart, we certainly have had members of the Traveller community working in the House, although sadly not enough. You made a very valid point and it is something I will personally take up with the Public Appointments Service. We might encourage Deputies, Senators and the political parties to look to the Traveller community when they are employing staff.

I call Deputy Ellis.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

First, I welcome everybody who has come to the Visitors Gallery today from the various organisations. It is great that everyone is here. I also welcome this comprehensive report on the Traveller community. Senator Flynn, as chairperson of the committee, has done a marvellous job in the committee. She has been outstanding. In addition, the members of the committee have been very good across the board. The commitment to make this report possible has been massive and everybody has had a major input into it. I thank all those who made submissions to the committee. We had a very broad range of submissions from across the community, local authorities, Departments and groups and organisations as diverse as sporting organisations, the Prison Service, community activists and medical organisations and, most important, the Traveller organisations and their community.

The voice of Travellers is rarely heard and rarely given a platform to express Travellers' concerns. This committee has given members of the Traveller community a great opportunity to have a voice and to have a part in what is being produced. The number of Traveller organisations that actively engaged with the committee is impressive. They gave us a great insight into the difficulties that the community faces each day. They were articulate in explaining their concerns and outlining what needs to be done for their community.

This report follows other reports from previous years. There are recommendations and observations in this report that are not necessarily new. They have appeared in previous reports but were never acted on. That is a real concern. Good work has been done previously, but we found in our discussions with Traveller groups that the concerns they expressed in previous years still pertain today. My hope is that the recommendations in this report will be fully implemented and followed up.

We witnessed at first hand many of the issues in the different areas. We visited various sites, such as Carrowbrowne in Galway, Spring Lane in Cork and St. Margaret's and Labre Park in Dublin. I am more familiar with St. Margaret's and the halting site in St. Joseph's Park in Finglas. The concerns I have seen in the halting sites in my constituency of Dublin North-West mirror the concerns throughout the country. On occasions, it was very depressing to see some of the conditions and the problems facing the Traveller community. We have to admit as a society that discrimination still exists. It is common for many Traveller families and individuals to encounter discrimination daily. That is totally unacceptable.

There are 84 recommendations in this report. It is up to us as public representatives and members of the Traveller community and of the community to push these recommendations and force the Government to act. This is a very worthwhile report and I hope we get full support across the board.

Deputy Gary Gannon

First, I thank and commend Senator Flynn, in her capacity as chairperson of the Joint Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community, all the members of the committee and the wider participants on creating this vital report that so starkly presents not only the inequalities but also the structural violence faced by Irish Travellers. I also acknowledge the ferocity in the call in the report to act on the 84 recommendations. The Social Democrats will absolutely put our name to it.

I am conscious that I will not be able to talk about all the elements of the report in five minutes. As somebody who is passionate about education, I am particularly focused on that aspect. However, I will briefly mention some of the statistics relating to health, mental health, suicide rates and housing inequalities that I believe encapsulate the structural violence that is faced every day by members of the Traveller community. Life expectancy in the Traveller community is 15.1 years shorter for men and 11.5 years shorter for women than it is among the wider public. The infant mortality rate for Traveller children is 3.6 times the rate for the general population. Irish Traveller mothers are by far the most over-represented group who suffer perinatal deaths. Despite this, there is little specific mention of this in the national maternity strategy and no mention of it in the national maternity strategy implementation plan.

Some 90% of Travellers agreed that mental health problems were common in their community, and suicide is the cause of 11% of Traveller deaths, which is six times higher than is the case in the general population. The report of the Ombudsman for Children, No End in Site, highlighted the deplorable living conditions in one halting site, where there were approximately 140 people using toilets and washing facilities designed for 40 people, leading to stress, tension and, inevitably at times, conflict. Today, it is even more disheartening, but not surprising, that a statement issued by the Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance states that there has been no major improvement in the living conditions of Travellers over the past three years. The pandemic has encapsulated and placed a spotlight on many worrying inequalities, and in the intersectionality of that we see the oppression once more of the Traveller community. It is very clear that this comes down to a form of structural violence, a system if not designed for but certainly apathetic to the plight of people in the Traveller community, and which for generations forced oppression on that community.

I often speak in this Chamber about participation in, and access to, education.

There are those who will never know how easy their journey through the formal education system has been and there are those who face so many barriers to participation that they are essentially pushed out. Those who are pushed out are made to believe they are the problem and not that the system has failed them. I often speak about the postcode lottery and how stark the differences are between wealthy areas and low-income areas. That pales in comparison to the attrition rates for Travellers in education due to a system designed to oppress. The 2016 census, the most recent census we have, showed that 13% of Travellers attained higher secondary level or more compared to more than 70% in the more general population. A total of 17.7% of Traveller children have no education in comparison to 1.4% of the general population.

In 2016 only 167 Irish Travellers had the opportunity to avail of a third level qualification. As someone who has availed of access programmes I know in a small way what it is like to be considered a target group because of presupposed disadvantage. I acknowledge how exceptional these 167 students are and the others who have gone through the journey since 2016. They should absolutely not be the exception to the rule as is the case. Everyone should have the chance to succeed and progress in our education system. We cannot be satisfied with a few succeeding against the odds. We have to change the very system itself.

Given these facts, it always riles me when there is talk about the education system being a meritocracy. As it stands, it has the main aim of reproducing and reinforcing existing inequalities. The reality of these statistics demonstrates a culture in the State of low expectations for Traveller students. Pavee Point has stated that funding for Traveller education supports were cut by 86.6% between 2008 and 2013, compared to a 4.3% cut in overall Government spending. Much of this reduction was made in the name of mainstreaming without carefully monitoring the situation to ensure the same educational outcomes and interventions, with additional support if and when needed.

There is a consistent idea that if we treat everyone the same despite their differences, this somehow represents true equality. This is absolutely false. It sets many people up to fail. There is no inevitability that Traveller life, health, educational and employment outcomes should be so starkly contrasted to those in the wider population. We can and must act to change this. As Senator Flynn stated in the foreword of the report, recognising differences while being treated equally is what is being asked. The 84 recommendations of the report need to be implemented. Otherwise it will become inevitable by design and by will that the continued repression and structural violence faced by the Traveller community will continue. The Social Democrats absolutely put our name to the 84 recommendations in the report.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss the report. It is particularly timely and fitting that it is discussed in the week we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the declaration of Traveller ethnicity. It was extremely important, symbolically and otherwise, in the history of the State to officially recognise the contribution Travellers have made to our society.

The report lays out in stark terms what we all knew before we read it, which is that there is a persistent and systemic problem in how the State treats an ethnic community within the State. I agree with Deputy Leddin. It is a report that deserves to be read because it gives a window and insight into the lived experiences of Travelling people in our society. It is something we should acknowledge and face up to.

Members will know that before I arrived in Leinster House, I was a primary school teacher. Members might not know that in the primary school history curriculum for senior class groups there is a strand on continuity and change over time. It has a suggested unit dealing with nomadism. When I was putting together a unit of work on it for my sixth class group I could find any amount of material on African peoples who are nomadic and any amount of information on indigenous peoples in Australia who are still nomadic. Throughout all of the textbooks available to me I could find one paragraph that dealt with the Travelling community in Ireland. How must it feel as a child from the Travelling community in our classrooms to experience this level of invisibility in our society? Try as I might, I could not find a good quality resource that I could bring to my sixth class to teach them about an ethnic group that exists in our own country. In this regard I very much welcome the Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill, to which Senator Flynn made reference. The inclusion of Traveller culture and history in the school curriculum would have a huge positive effect. Travellers would feel seen in our classrooms. It would help us to celebrate in a positive way the contribution Travellers have made to our culture.

I will take a slightly different approach because the Chair and members of the committee are present and they know the report in-depth with a detail that I do not have. I want to apply the lens of the sustainable development goals to this area and the committee's report. We wear the nice shiny badge and it looks very well on the lapel. Often we think the sustainable development goals are something that happen overseas and far away from us. We might have an idea of the 17 goals but I do not know how often we dig down into the sub-targets beneath the goals. I propose to do this in the time I have.

Goal No. 1, which calls for no hunger, sets out a target addressing poverty. I do not for a moment suggest that every child who turned up in my classroom hungry in the morning came from the Travelling community. This is absolutely not the case. Often the backgrounds of the children who turned up hungry would surprise people. We know there is an issue with poverty rates in our Travelling community. This needs to be addressed. I do not think we are meeting this sustainable development goal in our State.

Goal No. 3 is about good health and well-being. The report sets this out in the clearest terms, as Deputy Gannon stated. We know that life expectancy for men in the Travelling community is 15.1 years shorter and for women it is 11 and a half years shorter than for people in the settled community. We know about the infant mortality rate. It is 3.6 times higher in the Travelling community then it is in the settled community. This is completely unacceptable.

We also know there is a mental health crisis in the Travelling community. We know that suicide is the cause of 11% of Traveller deaths. We know where it comes from. We know Travellers live in a society where racism is ingrained and, worse, is accepted. This should not be the case. I can absolutely understand the pressure. I know it is particularly young men in the Travelling community who take their own lives. There are also wider health implications. Mortality rates for cancer, cardiovascular disease and others causes of death are also significantly higher. I do not believe we have vindicated this goal in the State.

As for the goal on quality education, Senator Flynn serves on the education committee with me. The report states Travellers have severely worse education outcomes than the general population with lower retention and completion rates. We know education is the key to unlocking so much in our society. It tackles all of the other things. It tackles mental health issues. It tackles persistent poverty rates. It allows people to reach places they may not otherwise reach.

Goal No. 6 is to ensure clean water and sanitation. Recently I heard Senator Flynn speak on radio about wearing white socks to the school. I thought about the temporary halting site on the Green Road, which is about half a mile from where I grew up. I thought about the level of sanitation available there. I thought about the difficulty for mothers to send their children to school clean. When the children do not turn up to the school clean, what do they face? How does that make them feel when they arrive? That such a developed country does not meet these standards of sanitation and clean water for a section of our population is an indictment.

Goal No. 8 is about decent work and economic growth. With regard to labour market participation, the report found that just over 80% of Travellers in the labour force were unemployed. A total of 43% of travellers reported discrimination when seeking employment, while only 17% of the public stated they would employ a Traveller. This very much goes to what the Ceann Comhairle spoke about and the responsibility that rests on all of us.

Goal No. 10 to be achieved by 2030 is to reduce inequalities by empowering and promoting the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, economic or other status.

Senator Flynn said that, as she came in here, one of the ushers told her she very much deserved to be here on her own merit. I have seen how she has contributed on the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and how, with that lens and lived understanding, she has informed the work of the committee. We see how the representation of diverse communities adds to these Houses of the Oireachtas. I commend Senator Flynn on the excellent work she and all members of the committee have undertaken. As Deputy Leddin said, it is a report that richly deserves to be read and which provides insight into a community that has so far been poorly represented in our democracy.

I thank Deputy Ó Cathasaigh very much for those words of wisdom.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

I welcome Senator Flynn and commend her, Deputy Ó Cuív and all other members of the committee on their important work. I am delighted to get a chance to talk about this report on the key issues facing the Traveller community. I will quickly commend all of those who work in the Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group who have been on the ground working with vulnerable families and individuals, providing food parcels, personal protective equipment and support throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Just before the pandemic, Councillor Breda Hanaphy and I, along with Colette from the Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group, went around and visited the Traveller sites in Dublin 15, the Dublin West area. I challenge any Minister to visit these sites and see the conditions people are living in. To say they are appalling would be an understatement. For a Traveller community, "temporary" means 20 years or more. I will focus on one site I visited, located at St. Brigid's Lawn, which is ten minutes away from my house. There is a litany of issues there, including emergency health and safety issues and other long-term issues. St. Brigid's Lawn is on Porterstown Road in Clonsilla. It has been 30 years since the residents were moved from a site on Grove Road in Blanchardstown, which is ironically now the site of the head offices of Fingal County Council. Following long and difficult negotiations, a limited number of issues have been addressed but others have not. The day units are nothing short of a disgrace. The overcrowding on this site leaves it a Carrickmines tragedy waiting to happen.

These families live in St. Brigid's Lawn, which is covered in the Kellystown local area plan. In the coming years, 1,000 new houses and apartments are to be built along with schools, community facilities and sports facilities. I tried to use the local area plan, and Councillor Hanaphy tried to use the county development plan, to ensure that, when Kellystown is being developed, the existing extended family currently living in St. Brigid's Lawn, who are exceptionally well-integrated into the community, would be given the opportunity to continue to rear their families in their home area. How many extra bays will be allocated to St. Brigid's Lawn? One. They are being given a space the size of a couple of car-parking spaces in a development of more than 1,000 units.

I would also like to address the issue of educational attainment in the Traveller community. Over my years working in the school completion programme and Youthreach, I have seen the desire of so many from the Traveller community to stay in education but the hurdles they face are immense. One of the cruellest cuts made during the austerity, which still gets to me, was the complete removal of every single visiting teacher for Travellers. The whole scheme was completely abandoned. Along with other measures such as the 37% cut to the school completion programme, of which I was part, this had an devastating impact on Travellers' involvement in education. It again showed how quickly the Travelling community is kicked aside.

I endorse the call for a national Traveller mental health strategy. The figures for suicide among the Travelling community are beyond comprehension. Some 56% of Travellers reported poor physical and mental health as opposed to 24% of the rest of the population. Some 67% of men and 59% of women reported that their mental health was not good for one or more days in the past 30 days. It is clear that this report comes at a very important time but it is just another in a litany of reports. The most important word we need to hear with regard to this report is "implementation" 84 times.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir Flynn as a bheith anseo agus as na focail a dúirt sí linn inniu. I thank the Senator very much for the report. It was very interesting to work with her. Well done to her. I was very interested in what Deputy Ó Cathasaigh was saying about the curriculum in the schools. The report is a really useful tool. It is a rich collection of statistics all in the one place. They jump at you because the statistics on all of these areas, employment, housing, health and education, really speak for themselves and explain, without requiring you to wonder about it, that there is systemic discrimination against Travellers in all aspects of our lives. What Deputy Ó Cathasaigh said about trying to find a reference to nomadic people in our curriculum speaks volumes. Our curriculum is designed by people who work in the Department of Education, which is run by whoever is in this House at a given time. If the Deputy found it difficult to find such a reference, there is obviously a systemic problem. It does not just fall from the sky that there is no regard for the nomadic history of the Travellers in Ireland, nor does it fall from the sky that there is a high rate of suicide among Traveller men, that there is low educational attainment in that community or that 27% of Travellers leave school before the age of 13, which is a shocking statistic in this day and age. It might not have been 40 or 50 years ago, but it is now. There is a reason for those things. They have a systemic history and there is a systemic reason for them.

I experienced this as the chairperson of the Traveller accommodation programme in Dublin City Council. I chaired that group for four or five years. It was like bashing your head against a brick wall because you could get the co-operation of council officials verbally and in their body language - they would say "Yes" to this or to that and that they would do the other - but nothing was ever achieved because, on every level on which you tried to move forward, you were blocked from making the progress you needed to make. We visited Labre Park in Ballyfermot as part of the committee's work. That has actually gone backwards in terms of the promises that were made. The residents were promised regeneration more than 20 years ago. There was a promise that 40-odd houses would be regenerated. It is now down to approximately 15 in 2022. The residents are hopeful that they might get 15. The consequence of this is that the council ends up saying that Travellers actually prefer settled accommodation and do not really want Traveller-specific accommodation. Travellers are forced to choose or accept settled accommodation because the authorities are not delivering on the promise of Traveller-specific accommodation. It is integration almost by oppression. It is completely the wrong approach and it will not work. It will contribute to poor mental health, bad outcomes and a lack of confidence and self-sustainability.

In every aspect of the work we do in giving political leadership, we need to be very conscious of that. Never again should we see a political leaflet used to gather support or votes in any kind of election by undermining the Traveller community in the local area. That should never happen again but it has happened. There should be laws in place for cases where it does happen. The report is really important but, as the previous Deputy said, acting on it is even more important because, if we do not do that, all we are doing is perpetuating the systemic racism that exists in our society that prohibits and inhibits change from the very roots.

It is also very important that we recognise on a historical level the role the Traveller community has played in enriching our culture, our music, our diversity and our language. To set that aside and say it does not matter is to be soulless and to disregard what we, as a population, are made of. The Traveller community and its culture is a great part of that. There needs to be an aspect to this that looks into how to preserve and promote that culture and how to give more than just lip service to that culture by saying things like Travellers are wonderful actors, singers, dancers or whatever. Fundamentally, if we do not change the conditions under which Travellers live and really take seriously the problems in all four categories highlighted in this report, we will be failing yet again. I sincerely hope we do not do that.

Deputy Patrick Costello

I thank Senator Flynn for the leadership she is showing in driving the committee to deliver this report with its 84 recommendations. Tuesday was the anniversary of the day we recognised Traveller ethnicity. This has been a long struggle by the Travelling community to have their unique ethnic status recognised by the State. We did so about five years ago. While it was an important symbolic decision to make, very little has changed as a result of that. We now need more than just symbolism and words. To quote Senator Flynn, we need to put our name on it as Deputies and Ministers.

The recommendations in the report cut across many Departments. I will be writing to the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to include oversight of these recommendations. How are we going to do this? How are we going to put our name to it? How are we going to keep an eye on it to ensure this work is being done? This cuts across many committees. I am sure other Deputies will be doing the same thing. This affects the committees on housing, children, justice and education. We need to make time in our workflow as the months go on to ensure we are putting our name to it. The last thing we need to do is to allow the report to gather dust.

I looked through some of the report's recommendations, thinking back through the work we did. As Deputy Bríd Smith said, we went to Labre Park which is in my and her constituency. Among those in Labre Park, the sense of betrayal and of being let down by Dublin City Council and the powers that be was palpable. Some good community work was being done and there were some great people with very clear and articulate voices in the community. However, their simple demands for a space that was not infested with rats were not being met by Dublin City Council.

Senator Flynn referred to a €72 million budget for housing that had not been spent. If local authorities are not spending the budget, we need to take the responsibility away from them and ensure we are delivering. If local authorities and councillors are not delivering on Traveller accommodation, we need to find ways to do that. One of the recommendations is a national Traveller accommodation authority to take that power to push these things through and to ensure that whoever is in charge of the Traveller accommodation committee - whoever has replaced Deputy Bríd Smith on Dublin City Council - is not running into the same roadblocks and banging their head off the same wall. It is all well and good for us to talk about it, but behind that as we all know, large numbers of Travellers are struggling without decent accommodation.

Other Deputies have spoken about the knock-on consequences on health and mental health. We need to find where those blocks are and get them out of the way. If the blocks are our local authorities, then we need to get them out of the way and we need to take powers from them if that is what it takes. It is only by recognising inequality that we can begin to address at. Establishing a joint committee was definitely a good first step, but it is now up to the rest of us to keep pushing, to keep asking and to put our names to it.

Deputy Réada Cronin

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gcoiste agus, go háirithe, leis an Seanadóir Eileen Flynn as ucht na tuairisce seo atá an-tábhachtach. I take the opportunity to congratulate Dr. Sindy Joyce who is taking up her role as lecturer at the University of Limerick. They will be very lucky to have this outstanding academic put her particular and informed focus on Traveller, racial and ethnic studies. No more than in any part of our community where women take their place and use their voice, we can make the future better for everyone.

The report contains 84 recommendations, 18 of them relating to accommodation. I would like to speak from my experience as a councillor on Kildare County Council local Traveller accommodation consultative committee, LTACC. During my term on that committee, it was an all-women group of left-wing councillors who worked really well with the Travellers in our municipal districts. We worked hard to spend our allocation on a particular site we were working on but we could not. There was illness in the family, but in my experience the lack of urgency was the real illness that was deep at the heart of the official council level. Given my experience, I wholeheartedly recommend recommendation 74 that a national Traveller accommodation authority be established to oversee Traveller accommodation policy and have an input into the Traveller accommodation programme in each local authority. I would also like to see sanctions on local authorities that do not spend their allocation. We need accountability.

The Dáil recognised Traveller ethnicity and we must acknowledge the nomadic aspect of their culture. In terms of seasonal Travelling and meeting, it is beyond me how each county cannot designate an excellent facility where Travellers can come with the normal comforts of showers, electricity, bin collections, recycling etc. If we are willing to do this for settled people, I do not see why we cannot do it for Travellers. This was something I also put to the LTACC in Kildare County Council and he looked at me as if I had two heads. I am ready to put my name to this report and we need to act on it. Local authorities need to do their bit. In my experience it is not the elected councillors who stop this but the officials at local authority level and they have to be held accountable for that.

Deputy Martin Browne

I also welcome Senator Flynn and congratulate her and her committee on the report. I assure her that she is more than welcome and entitled to be in this House. This is an incredibly important document and, as the committee Chair has said, we cannot let this become just another report. We must put an end to the policies and practice that have failed the Traveller community. That is why it is important to highlight the findings of this report and its 84 recommendations. Among the many issues the Traveller community contends with are the scourges of discrimination, racism and exclusion. The report outlines worse health outcomes than in the settled community, the mental health crisis being experienced, the lower education retention and completion rates and accommodation shortfalls.

Regarding health, the committee heard that concerns over racism and discrimination underpin Travellers' lack of engagement with health services with 53% of Travellers fearing unfair treatment from healthcare providers. That is why I support the committee's call for the national Traveller health plan to be published urgently and for an independent implementation body to be established to drive its delivery. The Travelling community is also experiencing a mental health crisis. A suicide rate of 11% was recorded in 2010 which is seven times higher than in the settled community. Given the lack of engagement over fear of unfair treatment by healthcare providers, it is only right that the committee is calling for a ring-fenced health budget for the Traveller community within the HSE and for the appointment of a Department lead on Traveller health and mental health to monitor the progress, actions and initiatives across Departments.

The report states: "The health status of Travellers is impacted by a range of social determinants, most severely by overcrowded and substandard living conditions." It also outlines instances where the State and local authorities have failed to implement the measures to assist the Traveller community in this regard. While I do not have time to go into it right now-----

The Deputy is right; he does not.

-----I urge all Oireachtas Members, and local authority members and officials to read the report and to act. I will also put my name to it.

As Deputy Bríd Smith said, it is up to the 160 Members of this House, Senators and councillors throughout the country to ensure we put pressure on local authorities to implement the recommendations. I will be doing that on their behalf.

The Deputy is taking advantage of my gentle nature. Given the importance of the issue at hand, we can spare him the bit of time.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Seanadóir Eileen Flynn agus gabhaim buíochas leis an gcoiste as an obair atá déanta ar an tuairisc seo freisin. I thank the committee for its report. When we talk about the issues affecting the Traveller community, many people are shocked to learn of the stark realities facing it. It is good to see the volume of statistics presented so clearly in this report. I will refer to some of them. Suicide is the cause of 11% of deaths in the Travelling community, which is an incredible figure. According to information supplied to the committee by the Department of Health, the mortality rate for respiratory diseases is 7.5 times higher among male Travellers than it is in the general population and it is 5.4 times higher among female Travellers.

This report also shows significant differentials in mortality from cancer, cardiovascular disease and health issues in general. The Irish College of General Practitioners reports that, per 1,000 live births, the infant mortality rate in the general population is 3.9, whereas among Travellers it is 14.1, which is absolutely shocking and a terrible indictment of what is happening in this society.

When it comes to mental health, is it any wonder the situation is so dire? The State has in recent years undertaken a concerted effort to stop Travellers from travelling. In 1963 we had the Commission on Itinerancy, which recommended assimilation of Travellers into the settled community. In 1983 we had the Report of the Travelling People Review Body, which reported on the integration of Travellers into mainstream society but without properly recognising, supporting or promoting their cultural identity. Then we had the housing Act of 1992 and the Roads Acts in the following years. Those Acts allowed local authorities to remove Travellers from their camps at the roadside. These are just some of the examples of the way in which the State has systematically tried to stop Travellers from travelling and to force them into housing. This was a direct and concerted attack on Traveller culture. Internationally, human rights abuses against minorities typically follow the same trend. A minority is discriminated against and told they must become more like us if they are to be welcomed and included in society. We in Aontú oppose this narrative wholeheartedly. Travellers should be made to feel welcome and included in our country, society and democracy, and there should be no preconditions whatsoever to that inclusivity. For years this State, through its laws and practices, has suggested that Travellers can be included in society only if they abandon their culture, and it is time we recognised that this is absolutely wrong.

I have heard some fantastic speeches today, but speeches mean nothing unless there are changes in society. I point especially to local authorities. All the political parties represented here have influence over what is happening on local authorities throughout the country. In recent years, I have done a lot of work looking at the funds that are spent on Traveller accommodation in each local authority around the country. It is amazing that, at a time of housing crisis, many local authorities, year after year, have returned that funding to central government in Dublin. I cannot understand how in a housing crisis there can be local authorities continuously returning funds to Dublin. That has changed recently, and I had hoped that change would be positive. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has taken over that role in the Department, and the system is such that there is a central pot of money provided by the Government and local authorities can extract that money for Traveller accommodation. However, now it is impossible, through freedom of information request or parliamentary question, to find out which local authorities are sending that money back and not drawing it down. There is a problem with the culture on certain county and city councils where councillors do not want to engage on the topic of Traveller accommodation because they see it as divisive. That shows cowardice on the part of some politicians who clearly want to keep their seats and feel there is an electoral cost to providing money to Traveller families for homes. In Galway, we saw tensions build so much that some people set fire to a house that had been designated for a Traveller family. After that incident, some of the politicians who were involved in stirring up that hatred went scrambling from that campaign pretty quickly. It takes hatred to strike a match in that regard. What happened was utterly shameful. I commend Deputy Ó Cuív, who stood up very strongly against that hatred and stood with the Delaney family.

I do not have long left to speak but I wish to remember a friend of mine, Michael McDonagh, who died recently. Michael was a tireless advocate of Travellers' rights. He was a founder and manager of Meath Travellers Workshop, and the contribution he made to society was huge, from helping Travellers engage with education to helping families who were struggling with life. He was an absolute gentleman and will be sorely missed in Navan and the wider Meath area. Our thoughts and prayers are with Nell and his children. I know that Michael would have agreed with the key point that we need to improve the life experiences of Travellers but that we should do so in a way that does not mean they have to abandon their culture. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Thank you, Deputy Tóibín, for mentioning your friend and colleague. I think the whole House would salute him and the work he did.

Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

I am pleased to be here to discuss the report of the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community. I welcome Senator Flynn to the House. We look forward to seeing her here more often, I hope. I also wish to take a moment to acknowledge, as others have, Ronnie Fay, co-director of Pavee Point, who recently passed away. On this day last month, so many gathered to say goodbye to her. Ronnie was a tireless advocate for the Traveller community. Knowing her and engaging with her since I became Fine Gael spokesperson for equality was a privilege. It was a privilege to work with her and to have the benefit of her education and the depth of her knowledge and to learn from her. I am sorry she is not here today to see this very important report discussed in the Chamber.

The Traveller community has been all too isolated and neglected a part of our community in our society, often purposely pushed and bullied into the sidelines in ways that cannot be tolerated. The Traveller community has faced discrimination, racism and an inequality of opportunity that I and so many others have taken for granted entirely. The figures in this important report speak for themselves. Other speakers have cited them but I wish to do so also. The figures show much shorter life expectancies among Travellers, with 11% of Traveller deaths attributed to suicide and very important and serious concerns about health services and bullying in education settings. The latter is one of the things I find most difficult. I demand yet again that the Department of Education come forward with a serious and integrated national Traveller education strategy that seeks to address those issues, but I will come back to that. The figures show cuts to Traveller-specific education supports and difficulties obtaining ongoing employment outside of the community outlined in the report, with one in three Traveller households living in accommodation with no sewerage facilities and a further one in five living with no piped water source. They are stark figures. Water, a basic need, is just not there for one in five Traveller households.

We have spoken a lot about ensuring that our elected representatives are just that: representative of the people across our diverse shared communities in Ireland. However, we simply have not delivered for all the diverse communities in Ireland. I hope that the work ongoing in the Government, particularly this report, might give impetus and momentum to that work and help to deliver change. There have been some positive changes. In the two months leading up to Christmas, we heard from the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, who confirmed there was a full spend by local authorities of over €21 million for Traveller accommodation in 2021. That budget has increased in 2022. There is the requirement on local authorities to spend that money, and there are penalties for failing to do so. This report has been a particularly poor end-of-year report for local authorities, where year after year there has been that underspend. As other Deputies have said, that money goes back to the central allocation. However, I wish to mention briefly Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which has worked hard to buck that trend of underspending. That is fine to note, but that needs to be persistent and needs to be the basic standard and by no means the exception.

A few days before this report was published, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, announced ring-fenced funding to support Travellers and the Roma community in higher education, a 50% increase on last year's funding, now totalling €450,000. I go back to my point about the Department of Education and the need to bring forward the national Traveller education strategy. It has been in development for many years. I know it is at the top of Pavee Point's list of priorities. We have seen reports on children in the Traveller community in schools and how difficult it has been for them. There is bullying and isolation. We know there are teachers and principals who go out of their way to make children feel included, to make sure they have the services and supports they need, to try to identify, to stop and to have a zero-tolerance approach to racism and racist language in schools. That is not, however, the universal experience of children in the Traveller community in schools, which is simply not good enough.

There has been positive movement but we need to do more, as I said. This is not just about funding and supports; it is about the way we do things. It is about education in schools, educating people more broadly about racism and acknowledging that, unfortunately, it still very much exists in modern Ireland. It is about a level of understanding and respect, which we have been lacking, to live side by side and in an integrated way with consideration and respect for all people in their communities, their identities, the rich traditions that come from the different communities and how they can only contribute to one another and add to the vibrant culture that is Ireland.

I again acknowledge Senator Flynn and thank her for the work she has put into the special committee and the report. As I walked back into Leinster House after lunch today, I met her partner and daughter. The latter is too young to understand the impact of the work the Senator is doing, what it means and the legacy she is creating with that work and in being here. I note the Senator's representative function for Traveller women, the Traveller community more broadly and women more broadly and what it says about inclusivity and respect for each other. I am delighted to see her in the House. I did not know that was going to happen and it is important that it has and that her daughter will see it in time. I thank the Senator for her work on this and I hope it gives impetus to the Government to deliver in the way that is needed.

We go to the Independent Group slot, where Deputy Pringle is sharing with Deputy Connolly.

Deputy Thomas Pringle

I welcome Senator Flynn to the House. It is great to see her here and I hope it will not be the last time she is here. I thank her and the committee for the important and timely report. It includes 84 recommendations, all of which are important. There are many facts in the report as well, as has been mentioned by many speakers. I will not go back over them but they are important and it is good to have them on the record. Unfortunately, they are facts that no country, government or parliament should be proud of in relation to a large part of its community and how that community has been treated.

We have an obligation to make sure today is not repeated. I do not want to come here in five years' time and have another report. This week is the fifth anniversary of the declaration of Traveller ethnicity. We should be coming here today to launch a report on the progress and what has been done to achieve the rights of Travellers across the country. I hope in five years' time or less we will have a report like that. It would be a tribute to the work Senator Flynn has done in the committee and to everybody in this House if that happened. Sadly, I fear it will not but we will work to make sure it is. The onus is on the Government to put in place policies and make sure funding is provided. I know everybody on this side of the House will support that and ensure it happens. However, the Government has to be willing to do it and have the balls to do it. That needs to happen over the next couple of years. Hopefully, it will and when we come here next time, we will talk about progress rather than restating recommendations that have been said before. That will be vital.

Deputy Catherine Connolly

I welcome Senator Flynn. She said she came from a background of wheeling and dealing and she used those skills to great effect today when she went way beyond her time. Learning from that and building on those skills, maybe I will have the same success. She is the first Traveller ever elected to the Houses of the Oireachtas, which is significant, the first to address the Dáil, which is extremely significant, and her partner and child are here. We usually say behind every good man is a very good woman, but it is clear that there is a very good man behind the Senator, keeping her going and giving her the confidence and determination to persist, because that is what is needed. I welcome the distinguished visitors in the Gallery. It is great to see it after Covid, and for many reasons.

The report makes 84 recommendations in four areas. It is important to say the committee pays tribute and "was struck by the resilience of the Traveller community in the face of decades of deprivation, poverty and discrimination" and other things besides. Then it gives the recommendations and statistics.

To put it in context, as Deputy Tóibín did to some extent, in 1963, we had a Commission on Itinerancy. All of the facts were the same. Nothing has changed except the language. That commission identified itinerants, as they were called, as the problem. it appealed to charity and religious organisations to deal with and remove the problem and the cases of hostility and antipathy by strict enforcement of the law to restore public confidence. It wanted to invoke the influence of local clergy and local religious, charitable and welfare organisations to deal with the problem. We continue to other the problem and when we other differences rather than cherishing them, it is at a great cost to our democracy. That is what we are asked here in three languages, namely, English, Irish and Cant:

Difríochtaí a aithint le linn caitheamh linn go cothrom. Is é cothrom na féinne amháin atá uainn.

Recognising difference while being treated equally. All we want is fairness.

If we look from 1963 to now, which is almost 60 years, we are faced with the same range of problems. We have to ask ourselves as public representatives what is going on. We deplore what is happening in local authorities but most of us were in local authorities. I echo what Deputy Bríd Smith said. I spent five years on a Traveller accommodation committee. It was the worst experience of my life. I did not go back on it. I did my best during those five years but it was extremely difficult to cope with the duplicitous language and the failure to act. Traveller representatives on the committee were not free to speak because they were utterly dependent on the local authority. I would never go back to that position.

We have failed to comply with our legal obligations. We talk about sanctions but we have done all of this already. All the city and county managers have powers to act. We should not be in a position where accommodation is not being rolled out.

I am not sure how much more time I can wheedle but as long as I can go on, I will. The four areas were health, education, housing and economy. There were contributions from Galway from the Galway Traveller Movement and Bounce Back Recycling. It is apparent that there are positive solutions to all of this. Let us stop dealing with something as a problem. Let us cherish the differences and go forward.

I agree with all of the recommendations but one that sticks out, besides the accommodation, is the one in relation to mainstreaming this in our education system. That could be easily done. To echo the words of my colleague, I wish we were here to celebrate the implementation of that declaration. I have exhausted the Ceann Comhairle's patience. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Ceann Comhairle.

I have limitless patience. It was good to hear the Deputy. We move to Deputy Joan Collins, who was also a member of the committee.

Deputy Joan Collins

I welcome everybody in the Gallery. I welcome Senator Flynn and thank her for being here and for chairing the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community, which was established in September 2020 to complete the work initiated by the previous joint committee, in which Collete Kelleher played a major role. We looked at four areas: physical health, mental health and suicide rates, in respect of which there are 21 recommendations; school completion rates and educational attainment, particularly at second and third level, compared with the settled community, which includes 23 recommendations; labour market participation, having regard to the unemployment rate of 80% among Travellers, containing 22 recommendations; and access to housing and accommodation, including Traveller-specific accommodation, in the context of the significantly higher homelessness rate among Travellers compared with the settled population, which included 18 recommendations.

Over the years there have been numerous reports which sit on shelves gathering dust on various areas, particularly the Traveller community. We want to see this report implemented. That will be the test of this debate. Any public representative - including local councillors, to whom we should bring this - by agreeing to this is behoved to implement it in a positive way and to at all times support the Traveller community through the recommendations of the report. That would mean all of us playing a positive role around the Traveller community and not undermining said recommendations.

This is the first time we have seen Cant, the language of the Traveller community, used in a report. That is important, and a milestone from that point of view.

I mentioned that there were four areas. Some of these recommendations could have been implemented by now. I refer, for example, to the recommendations on health. Recommendation 6 states, "The National Traveller Health Action Plan should be published as a matter of urgency and an independent implementation body, with ring-fenced budgets to drive delivery and implementation, should be established". Has that been done? Is it in train? I ask the Minister of State to respond on this point.

Recommendation 22, on education, is a call to: "Restore the dedicated funding to Traveller Education cut in the 2011, 2012 period in full and ring fence it to provide supplementary educational support for members of the Traveller Community where they would benefit from same." Has that been done? It is very simple. This report was published five months ago. Has that measure been put in place or set in train? Perhaps the Minister of State could comment on this as well.

Recommendation 47 relates to employment and states:

There should be formal positive action measures for recruiting Travellers to the public sector. These programmes need to be led, and funded, from central government. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, DPER, should be the lead department as it fits within [its] remit.

Has that been done? It is something that is simple and straightforward and that we could implement quickly. Will the Minister of State also comment on this point?

Recommendation 74, on housing, states, "A National Traveller Accommodation Authority should be established to oversee the development and implementation of Traveller accommodation policy". Has that been done? Is it in train? Can a report be brought to us on this aspect? Equally, recommendation 81, also on housing, states: "Cena should be funded to advise social housing landlords on the design, location and management of Traveller-specific accommodation projects." Cena is a housing body that can play a leading role in respect of Traveller housing accommodation.

Those of us on the committee visited several sites in Dublin, Cork and Galway. When I visited the site at Spring Lane with my colleagues, it was appalling to see people having to live in the conditions they were in. On the other hand, when we walked into those people's homes, we were welcomed and the pride in and running of those homes was brilliant. That is not being patronising, recognising the conditions they were living in. It behoves this Government and this Dáil to ensure that the areas and the homes where members of the Traveller community are living are up to standard. I mention the National Traveller Women's Forum, which sent an email concerning this debate. I thank the organisation for doing that.

President Higgins was at National University of Ireland Galway to mark Traveller Ethnicity Day on Tuesday. A report on the occasion stated: "On a day when the long and sometimes difficult journey of travellers was being honoured, he said it was vital that society would never be slow to point to what has yet to be achieved." I will conclude on this point. I ask the Dáil to implement these recommendations. We should perhaps get a report on the progress of the implementation of all these recommendations. We could invite the relevant Ministers in, maybe every eight months, to update us on how they stand.

I thank Deputy Joan Collins for that sound advice. In the spirit of where we find ourselves, running ahead of time and with flexibility, Deputy McAuliffe is here and wishes to contribute. I think we should hear from him for a minute or two.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

Perhaps I was too timid. I had four minutes at the end of Deputy Carroll MacNeill's contribution and I should have spoken up then. I promise that only two and half minutes were unused, so I do not think I will be wasting the House's time.

As a member of this committee, I welcome the publication of this report. I commend Senator Flynn on the work she has done. Her election as our Chair sent an important message. It was also an important decision for the committee because of the way that she chaired our meetings. I take this opportunity to thank her for that. I also acknowledge Deputy Ó Cuív, who is passionate about this issue, and I know other Members will agree with me on this point.

The findings in the report are stark. The lack of progress on the key issues affecting the Traveller community suggests there is merit in the idea that there should be a permanent Oireachtas committee on this matter that could oversee the Government's work more regularly. In the absence of such a committee, the responsibility falls on right across the board. It falls on the members of the Government, on the Ministers, on the Chairs of each of the committees, on each of us as Members of the Houses and on the chief executives and members of the local authorities. I refer in particular to the recommendation that Part 8 powers be removed from local authority members. There is a clear warning here. Members of local authorities moan about powers being removed from them. In that context, here is a warning to them to take brave decisions on Traveller accommodation in their communities and then powers will not be removed. It is important that we take action in this regard, such as examining the provision of Traveller accommodation. It is welcome that the allocation in this area was fully spent last year. That had to do with structural changes as well, which have enabled local authorities to access funding year-round. Small adjustments like that can deliver real change.

The mental health issue is probably the one that strikes me the most. Suicide rates among males in the Traveller community are six times higher than among their counterparts in the general population. This is not specifically referenced in material in front of me, but I refer to the level of addiction as a result of mental health issues, and we know that those issues are connected in many ways. I have spoken to the Minister of State with special responsibility in this area, Deputy Peter Burke, to tell him that it is important that we implement every one of the recommendations regarding mental health.

We talk about Ireland being a republic and about treating all the children of the nation equally, in the broadest sense of the word. There is no more blatant and brazen form of discrimination in this country than that to which the people in the Traveller community are subjected. It is discussed in open conversation, with no embarrassment. It is utterly unacceptable and, inevitably, it impacts every part of policy delivery.

I thank Deputy McAuliffe. Before I call Deputy Ó Cuív, and then the Minister of State to respond, I also want to make some remarks. I apologise to Senator Flynn for not being here when the debate started a little earlier than was scheduled. I also thank her, and former Senator Colette Kelleher before her, for the outstanding work they have done. The statistics published in this report cast a shadow of shame on our State and on our society. There is no escaping that reality.

I have had discussions on this with Senator Flynn, and we have agreed that we will have an implementation group established in Leinster House. The Clerk of the Dáil has already engaged with the Secretaries General of relevant Departments to ensure that we can have ongoing engagement to monitor the implementation of the 84 recommendations which have been brought before us. In addition, we have agreed, and I have given my personal undertaking, that we will re-establish and continue the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community on an ad hoc basis until the work of the special committees currently being established to examine surrogacy and autism have completed their work. After that, we will formally re-establish the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community as an ongoing standing committee of these Houses.

Having commenced this work in the Thirty-second Dáil and seen it reach this level of progress in the Thirty-third Dáil, I hope that the Thirty-fourth Dáil will continue to have such a committee so that we can move these recommendations forward and not have a report gathering dust on a shelf, but rather have regular assessments of its implementation. The idea proposed by Deputy Joan Collins, namely, that we should come in here regularly, perhaps twice a year, and debate the implementation of the recommendations of the report, is a very good one.

Hear, hear.

I am sorry. I have allowed myself that latitude. Having given Deputy Martin Browne latitude, I suppose I will give myself a little bit as well.

Can I have another small bit?

No, I am going to call Deputy Ó Cuív.

Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his interest in this matter. I am aware that only for his initiative, none of this would have ever happened.

I also thank Senator Eileen Flynn for the work she did as Chair. She brought invaluable knowledge to this subject with her contribution and expertise that many of us who have not lived that experience lack. It was a great privilege to be Vice Chair of this committee, which worked across parties in a very cohesive and agreed fashion.

I say to all my friends in the Traveller community that reports do not get things done and they are only the first steps in laying out what needs to be done. There is much that must be done. As part of the work of this committee, we visited Labre Park, St. Margaret's Park and four sites in Galway. I was familiar with the sites in Galway but I was not familiar with the other sites. I can speak to the public realm or exteriors of the properties and but I cannot talk about conditions inside those properties. On the exteriors, the nearest comparison I can make is to Soweto in South Africa, and we think we live in a First World country.

It is fair to say, as has been highlighted, that the traditional approach of a Government to this is that it is a problem to be solved. I have always seen Travellers as a community to be cherished and we must give real equality to that community. A comprehensive survey was done on attitudes on pluralism and diversity in Ireland. That professional work was published by Dr. Micheál Mac Gréil, a sociologist in Maynooth, in 2011 as part of a long series where he could tell us the attitude towards every group in Irish society. It is interesting that he dedicates the book as follows: "This book is dedicated to the emancipation of the Travelling people, Ireland's indigenous ethnic minority". One of the most striking statistics was as follows. With the Traveller people, the results are good and bad. On one hand, a considerable minority, 18.2%, would refuse citizenship to Travellers. On the other hand, tolerance towards Travellers is indicated by an increasing number of people who would welcome a Traveller into their family.

Let us consider the first figure, which at 18% means that nearly one in five people we meet in the street believes Travellers should not have citizenship. Half of those feel they should be deported. Those are scientific data and reading the totality of the book and our attitude towards various nationalities around the world, one sees that the group we respect least are an indigenous group.

The other point that is absolutely extraordinary concerns demographics. In the population as a whole, approximately 27% are in the group of people aged one to 19 but in Travellers that is 52%. How are there so many young people in the Traveller communities? It is because there are so few older people when compared with the rest of society. If we consider people aged between 60 and 79, the figure for society in general is 12.6% but in the Traveller community it is 3.7%. That is approximately a quarter of the percentage for society as a whole. If we consider people aged over 80, the figure for society in general is 2.7% but it is 0.3% for the Traveller community, or a tenth, give or take, of the percentage for society in general.

Do I believe those figures are true? Do I believe these attitudes are still valid in our society? Yes, I do. Some time ago a house was purchased by Galway City Council for Travellers who had been living in the county area for over 20 years. Mysteriously, in the middle of the night it was burned down. When the council went to rebuild the house, there were all sorts of objections lodged in the planning process. That tells us something about the prevailing attitudes.

There is much work to be done and we cannot afford to be sitting on it. As the Chairperson indicated in her foreword, over the years there have been numerous reports and studies produced that have highlighted the extreme difficulties and challenges faced by the Traveller community. Unfortunately, it is clear they have not succeeded in improving conditions in Traveller lives. When we wrote the report, it was not for debating but for action.

I commend the Ceann Comhairle on his comments and I look forward to having a standing committee. We must be on this every week because new matters will arise that we have not covered in this report. Otherwise we will not see change. I have been 30 years in politics and I have worked on this matter but do I see much change? Do I still see people in my constituency in totally unacceptable accommodation? The answer is "yes". Do I see people who cannot get replacement caravans because the city council has stated it can only afford its share of four of them, despite 20 or 25 of them in absolutely disgraceful conditions? As I have often asked, would you sleep in a freezing caravan that is damp every night of the week just because somebody in this very wealthy State has said the council can only afford four of them this year?

We have much work to do. The Oireachtas has work to do. It is time we did it and dealt with the way society has treated Travellers. From experience, I know it is time for us not only to have a lead Minister with clout with responsibility for Traveller matters but that Minister should have a dedicated fund, similar to what is being given to the islands, for example. If somebody in another Department is not doing the required job, that Minister should be able to step up with a fund, intervene and make it happen. The time for prevarication and delay is over. It is now a time for action. I hope this report will result not in more debate but in action to improve lives. That is the kind of action I have not yet seen in my time in politics.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Deputy Josepha Madigan)

As the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, is regrettably unable to attend this session, I am pleased to deliver the closing statement on his behalf.

I say to Senator Flynn that the usher who told her she deserves to be here is absolutely correct. Of course she deserves to be here and it is her voice that is effecting change as a Senator, a member of the Traveller community, as an advocate and the expert Chair of the special Oireachtas committee. I compliment the members of the committee here in the Dáil, as well as Deputy Ó Cuív as Vice Chairperson. I have no doubt Senator Flynn is inspiring other members of the Traveller community to become public representatives, and the more public representatives there are here in the Oireachtas speaking on behalf of the Traveller community, the better. That is how change will be effected in a real way.

I welcome the comments of the Ceann Comhairle about welcoming more of the Traveller community to the Oireachtas here in employment. I note he said he would take that up. To the families of Ms Ronnie Fay and Mr. Michael McDonagh, I send condolences. I note the work done by them. I welcome our visitors to the Gallery and acknowledge their professional advocacy. I hope they will take some comfort from all the words said here today. As Senator Flynn has said, those words must be matched with actions and there must be implementation of the recommendations. As Senator Flynn has also said, we must move forward together in order to achieve this.

There is no doubt we are all in agreement that Travellers and Roma continue to suffer from negative stereotypes and discrimination. It is clear from the report that although there has been some improvement, much more needs to be done to ensure full equality of opportunity for Travellers and Roma and remove barriers to their full and equal participation in Irish life.

The Department of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has an important funding role and it provides funding to support a range of activities linked to the national Traveller, Roma and inclusion strategy, and to provide core funding to a number of Traveller and Roma organisations. Under that strategy his Department has secured a budget of €5.659 million for 2022 and an additional €880,000 in dormant account funding has also been secured.

I also note the importance placed on education, the impact it has on a person's life to achieve their potential and on their ability to secure employment. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to develop a Traveller education strategy. This will include early years, primary, secondary and third level education. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, will engage with the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Harris, in progressing this commitment.

I believe as well that the issue of cultural identity is extremely important. There is a need for broader cultural awareness of Traveller identity and increased visibility of Traveller culture and heritage. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has worked to advance projects that increase the visibility of Traveller culture and heritage. A project is also being progressed with the National Museum of Ireland to develop an online portal to the Traveller culture collections. I am aware that work is under way by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment arising from an audit of the curriculum in respect of Traveller culture and history with a view to developing opportunities for teaching about that history and culture and developing resources for use in schools.

On behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, I thank the committee for its report and reiterate the Government's commitment to continuing its work on ensuring full equality of opportunity for Travellers and Roma and removing the barriers to their full and equal participation in Irish life. For any individual questions that came up today, I will pass them on to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman.

I thank the Minister of State and Deputy Ó Cuív for that summation. Let us hope that today will be remembered as an historic day in the life of the Traveller community in Ireland. It is also an historic day in the life of this Chamber because it is the first time in my recollection that a Member of the Upper House came all the way down to this Chamber to present a report to us. Senator Flynn is making history in more than one way. It behoves us all also to thank Leo Bollins, the clerk to the committee, for the sterling work he did on its behalf.

That concludes our statements on the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community. We will fix a date for a further such debate in the not-too-distant future.

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• Ethnicity facts and figures homepage Home

Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller ethnicity summary

Updated 29 March 2022

1. About this page

2. the gypsy, roma and traveller group, 3. classifications, 4. improving data availability and quality, 5. population data, 6. education data, 7. economic activity and employment data.

• 8. Home ownership data data
• 9. Health data

This is a summary of statistics about people from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ethnic groups living in England and Wales.

It is part of a series of summaries about different ethnic groups .

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) is a term used to describe people from a range of ethnicities who are believed to face similar challenges. These groups are distinct, but are often reported together.

This page includes:

• information about GRT data and its reliability
• some statistics from the 2011 Census
• other statistics on the experiences of people from the GRT groups in topics including education, housing and health

This is an overview based on a selection of data published on Ethnicity facts and figures or analyses of other sources. Some published data (for example, on higher education) is only available for the aggregated White ethnic group, and is not included here.

Through this report, we sometimes make comparisons with national averages. While in other reports we might compare with another ethnic group (usually White British), we have made this decision here because of the relatively small impact the GRT group has on the overall national average.

The term Gypsy, Roma and Traveller has been used to describe a range of ethnic groups or people with nomadic ways of life who are not from a specific ethnicity.

In the UK, it is common in data collections to differentiate between:

• Gypsies (including English Gypsies, Scottish Gypsies or Travellers, Welsh Gypsies and other Romany people)
• Irish Travellers (who have specific Irish roots)
• Roma, understood to be more recent migrants from Central and Eastern Europe

The term Traveller can also encompass groups that travel. This includes, but is not limited to, New Travellers, Boaters, Bargees and Showpeople. (See the House of Commons Committee report on Tackling inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities .)

For the first time, the 2011 Census ethnic group question included a tick box for the ethnic group ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’. This was not intended for people who identify as Roma because they are a distinct group with different needs to Gypsy or Irish Travellers.

The 2021 Census had a ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’ category, and a new ‘Roma’ category.

A 2018 YouGov poll found that 66% of people in the UK wrongly viewed GRT not to be an ethnic group, with many mistaking them as a single group (PDF). It is therefore important that GRT communities are categorised correctly on data forms, using separate tick boxes when possible to reflect this.

The 2011 Census figures used in this report and on Ethnicity facts and figures are based on respondents who chose to identify with the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group. People who chose to write in Roma as their ethnicity were allocated to the White Other group, and data for them is not included here. Other data, such as that from the Department for Education, includes Roma as a category combined with Gypsy, with Irish Traveller shown separately.

The commentary in this report uses the specific classifications in each dataset. Users should exercise caution when comparing different datasets, for example between education data (which uses Gypsy/Roma, and Irish Traveller in 2 separate categories) and the Census (which uses Gypsy and Irish Traveller together, but excludes data for people who identify as Roma).

Finally, it should be noted that there is also a distinction that the government makes, for the purposes of planning policy, between those who travel and the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller ethnicities. The Department for Communities and Local Government (at the time, now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) planning policy for traveller sites (PDF) defines "gypsies and travellers" as:

"Persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, including such persons who on grounds only of their own or their family’s or dependants’ educational or health needs or old age have ceased to travel temporarily, but excluding members of an organised group of travelling showpeople or circus people travelling together as such."

This definition for planning purposes includes any person with a nomadic habit, whether or not they might have identified as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller in a data collection.

The April 2019 House of Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee report on inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities noted that there was a lack of data on these groups.

The next section highlights some of the problems associated with collecting data on these groups, and what is available. Some of the points made about surveys, sample sizes and administrative data are generally applicable to any group with a small population.

Improving data for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller populations, as well as other under-represented groups in the population is part of the recommendations in the Inclusive Data Taskforce report and the key activities described in the ONS response to them. For example, in response to recommendation 3 of the report, ONS, RDU and others will "build on existing work and develop new collaborative initiatives and action plans to improve inclusion of under-represented population groups in UK data in partnership with others across government and more widely".

Also, the ONS response to recommendation 4 notes the development of a range of strategies to improve the UK data infrastructure and fill data gaps to provide more granular data through new or boosted surveys and data linkage. Recommendation 6 notes that research will be undertaken using innovative methods best suited to the research question and prospective participants, to understand more about the lived experiences of several groups under-represented in UK data and evidence, such as people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups.

4.1 Classifications

In some data collections, the option for people to identify as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller is not available. Any data grouped to the 5 aggregated ethnic groups does not show the groups separately. Data based on the 2001 Census does not show them separately as there was no category for people identifying as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller. As part of our Quality Improvement Plan, the Race Disparity Unit (RDU) has committed to working with government departments to maintain a harmonised approach to collecting data about Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people using the GSS harmonised classification. The harmonised classification is currently based on the 2011 Census, and an update is currently being considered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In particular, RDU has identified working with DHSC and NHS Digital colleagues as a priority – the NHS classification is based on 2001 Census classifications and does not capture information on any of the GRT groups separately (they were categorised as White Other in the 2001 Census). Some of these issues have been outlined in the quarterly reports on progress to address COVID-19 health inequalities .

Research into how similar or different the aggregate ethnic groups are shows how many datasets are available for the GRT group.

Further information on the importance of harmonisation is also available.

4.2 Census data

A main source of data on the Gypsy and Irish Traveller groups is the 2011 Census. This will be replaced by the 2021 Census when results are published by the ONS. The statistics in this summary use information from Ethnicity facts and figures and the Census section of ONS’s NOMIS website.

4.3 Survey data

It is often difficult to conclude at any one point in time whether a disparity is significant for the GRT population, as the population is so small in comparison to other ethnic groups.

Even a large sample survey like the Annual Population Survey (APS) has a small number of responses from the Gypsy and Irish Traveller ethnic group each year. Analysis of 3 years of combined data for 2016, 2017 and 2018 showed there were 62 people in the sample (out of around 500,000 sampled cases in total over those 3 years) in England and Wales. Another large survey, the Department for Transport’s National Travel Survey, recorded 58 people identifying as Gypsy or Traveller out of 157,000 people surveyed between 2011 and 2019.

Small sample sizes need not be a barrier to presenting data if confidence intervals are provided to help the user. But smaller sample sizes will mean wider confidence intervals, and these will provide limited analytical value. For the 2016 to 2018 APS dataset – and using the standard error approximation method given in the LFS User Guide volume 6 with a fixed design factor of 1.6 (the formula is 1.6 * √p(1 − p)/n where p is the proportion in employment and n is the sample size.) – the employment rate of 35% for working age people in the Gypsy and Traveller group in England and Wales would be between 16% and 54% (based on a 95% confidence interval). This uses the same methodology as the ONS’s Sampling variability estimates for labour market status by ethnicity .

A further reason for smaller sample sizes might be lower response rates. The Women and Select Committee report on the inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities noted that people in these groups may be reluctant to self-identify, even where the option is available to them. This is because Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people might mistrust the intent behind data collection.

The RDU recently published a method and quality report on working out significant differences between estimates for small groups using different analytical techniques.

4.4 Administrative data

While administrative data does not suffer from the same issues of sampling variability, small numbers of respondents can mean that data is either disclosive and needs to be suppressed to protect the identity of individuals, or results can fluctuate over time.

An example of this is the measure of students getting 3 A grades or better at A level . In 2019 to 2020, no Irish Traveller students achieved this (there were 6 students in the cohort). In 2017 to 2018, 2 out of 7 Irish Traveller students achieved 3 A grades, or 28.6% – the highest percentage of all ethnic groups.

Aggregating time periods might help with this, although data collected in administrative datasets can change over time to reflect the information that needs to be collected for the administrative process. The data collected would not necessarily be governed by trying to maintain a consistent time series in the same way that data collected through surveys sometimes are.

4.5 Data linkage

Linking datasets together provides a way of producing more robust data for the GRT groups, or in fact, any ethnic group. This might improve the quality of the ethnicity coding in the dataset being analysed if an ethnicity classification that is known to be more reliable is linked from another dataset.

Data linkage does not always increase the sample size or the number of records available in the dataset to be analysed, but it might do if records that have missing ethnicity are replaced by a known ethnicity classification from a linked dataset.

An example is the linking of the Census data to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data and death registrations by the ONS. The ethnicity classifications for GRT groups are not included in the HES data, and are not collected in the death registrations process at the moment. So this data linking gives a way to provide some information for Gypsy and Irish Travellers and other smaller groups. The report with data up to 15 May 2020 noted 16 Gypsy or Irish Traveller deaths from COVID-19.

RDU will be working with ONS and others to explore the potential for using data linking to get more information for the GRT groups.

4.6 Bespoke surveys and sample boosts

A country-wide, or even local authority, boost of a sample survey is unlikely to make estimates for the GRT groups substantially more robust. This is because of the relatively small number in the groups to begin with.

Bespoke surveys can be used to get specific information about these groups. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities list of traveller sites available through their Traveller caravan count statistics can help target sampling for surveys, for example. Bespoke surveys might be limited in geographical coverage, and more suitable for understanding GRT views in a local area and then developing local policy responses. An example of a bespoke survey is the Roma and Travellers in 6 countries survey .

Another method that could be useful is snowball sampling. Snowball sampling (or chain-referral sampling) is a sampling technique in which the respondents have traits that are rare to find. In snowball sampling, existing survey respondents provide referrals to recruit further people for the survey, which helps the survey grow larger.

There are advantages to snowball sampling. It can target hidden or difficult to reach populations. It can be a good way to sample hesitant respondents, as a person might be more likely to participate in a survey if they have been referred by a friend or family member. It can also be quick and cost effective. Snowball sampling may also be facilitated with a GRT community lead or cultural mediator. This would help bridge the gap between the GRT communities and the commissioning department to encourage respondent participation.

However, one statistical disadvantage is that the sampling is non-random. This reduces the knowledge of whether the sample is representative, and can invalidate some of the usual statistical tests for statistical significance, for example.

All data in this section comes from the 2011 Census of England and Wales, unless stated otherwise.

In 2011, there were 57,680 people from the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group in England and Wales, making up 0.1% of the total population. In terms of population, it is the smallest of the 18 groups used in the 2011 Census.

Further ONS analysis of write-in responses in the Census estimated the Roma population as 730, and 1,712 people as Gypsy/Romany.

Table A: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller write-in ethnicity responses on the 2011 Census

Source: Census - Ethnic group (write-in response) Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, GypsyRomany - national to county (ONS). The figures do not add to the 57,680 classified as White: Gypsy/Traveller because Roma is included as White Other, and some people in the other categories shown will have classified themselves in an ethnic group other than White.

An ONS report in 2014 noted that variations in the definitions used for this ethnic group has made comparisons between estimates difficult. For example, some previous estimates for Gypsy or Irish Travellers have included Roma or have been derived from counts of caravans rather than people's own self-identity. It noted that other sources of data estimate the UK’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population to be in the region of 150,000 to 300,000 , or as high as 500,000 (PDF).

5.1 Where Gypsy and Irish Traveller people live

There were 348 local authorities in England and Wales in 2011. The Gypsy or Irish Traveller population was evenly spread throughout them. The 10 local authorities with the largest Gypsy or Irish Traveller populations constituted 11.9% of the total population.

Figure 1: Percentage of the Gypsy or Irish Traveller population of England and Wales living in each local authority area (top 10 areas labelled)

Basildon was home to the largest Gypsy or Irish Traveller population, with 1.5% of all Gypsy or Irish Traveller people living there, followed by Maidstone (also 1.5%, although it had a smaller population).

Table 1: Percentage of the Gypsy or Irish Traveller population of England and Wales living in each local authority area (top 10)

28 local authorities had fewer than 20 Gypsy or Irish Traveller residents each. This is around 1 in 12 of all local authorities.

11.7% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people lived in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods , higher than the national average of 9.9% (England, 2019 Indices of Multiple Deprivation).

81.6% of people from the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group were born in England, and 6.1% in the other countries of the UK. 3.0% were born in Ireland and 8.3% were born somewhere else in Europe (other than the UK and Ireland). Less than 1.0% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were born outside of Europe.

5.2 Age profile

The Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group had a younger age profile than the national average in England and Wales in 2011.

People aged under 18 made up over a third (36%) of the Gypsy or Irish Traveller population, higher than the national average of 21%.

18.0% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were aged 50 and above , lower than the national average of 35.0%.

Figure 2: Age profile of Gypsy or Irish Traveller and the England and Wales average

Table 2: age profile of gypsy or irish traveller and the england and wales average, 5.3 families and households.

20.4% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households were made up of lone parents with dependent children , compared with 7.2% on average for England and Wales.

Across all household types, 44.9% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households had dependent children, compared with an average of 29.1%.

8.4% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households were made up of pensioners (either couples, single pensioners, or other households where everyone was aged 65 and over), compared with 20.9% on average.

All data in this section covers pupil performance in state-funded mainstream schools in England.

At all key stages, Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller pupils’ attainment was below the national average.

Figure 3: Educational attainment among Gypsy, Roma, Irish Traveller and pupils from all ethnic groups

Table 3: educational attainment among gypsy, roma, irish traveller and pupils from all ethnic groups.

Source: England, Key Stage 2 Statistics, 2018/19; Key Stage 4 Statistics, 2019/20; and A Level and other 16 to 18 results, 2020/21. Ethnicity facts and figures and Department for Education (DfE). Figures for Key Stage 2 are rounded to whole numbers by DfE.

6.1 Primary education

In the 2018 to 2019 school year, 19% of White Gypsy or Roma pupils, and 26% of Irish Traveller pupils met the expected standard in key stage 2 reading, writing and maths . These were the 2 lowest percentages out of all ethnic groups.

6.2 Secondary education

In the 2019 to 2020 school year, 8.1% of White Gypsy or Roma pupils in state-funded schools in England got a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths, the lowest percentage of all ethnic groups.

Gypsy or Roma (58%) and Irish Traveller (59%) pupils were the least likely to stay in education after GCSEs (and equivalent qualifications). They were the most likely to go into employment (8% and 9% respectively) – however, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about these groups due to the small number of pupils in key stage 4.

6.3 Further education

Gypsy or Roma students were least likely to get at least 3 A grades at A level, with 10.8% of students doing so in the 2020 to 2021 school year. 20.0% of Irish Traveller students achieved at least 3 A grades, compared to the national average of 28.9%. The figures for Gypsy or Roma (61) and Irish Traveller (19) students are based on small numbers, so any generalisations are unreliable.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer exam series was cancelled in 2021, and alternative processes were set up to award grades. In 2020/21 attainment is higher than would be expected in a typical year. This likely reflects the changes to the way A/AS level grades were awarded rather than improvements in student performance.

6.4 School exclusions

In the 2019 to 2020 school year, the suspension rates were 15.28% for Gypsy or Roma pupils, and 10.12% for Irish Traveller pupils – the highest rates out of all ethnic groups.

Also, the highest permanent exclusion rates were among Gypsy or Roma pupils (0.23%, or 23 exclusions for every 10,000 pupils). Irish Traveller pupils were permanently excluded at a rate of 0.14%, or 14 exclusions for every 10,000 pupils.

6.5 School absence

In the autumn term of the 2020 to 2021 school year, 52.6% of Gypsy or Roma pupils, and 56.7% of Irish Traveller pupils were persistently absent from school . Pupils from these ethnic groups had the highest rates of overall absence and persistent absence.

For the 2020 to 2021 school year, not attending in circumstances related to coronavirus (COVID-19) was not counted toward the overall absence rate and persistent absence rates.

Data in this section is from the 2011 Census for England and Wales, and for people aged 16 and over. Economic activity and employment rates might vary from other published figures that are based on people of working age.

47% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people aged 16 and over were economically active, compared to an average of 63% in England and Wales.

Of economically active people, 51% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were employees, and 26% were self-employed. 20% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were unemployed, compared to an average for all ethnic groups of 7%.

7.1 Socio-economic group

Figure 4: socio-economic group of gypsy or irish traveller and average for all ethnic groups for people aged 16 and over, table 4: socio-economic group of gypsy or irish traveller and average for all ethnic groups for people aged 16 and over.

Source: 2011 Census

31.2% of people in the Gypsy or Irish Traveller group were in the socio-economic group of ‘never worked or long-term unemployed’. This was the highest percentage of all ethnic groups.

The Gypsy or Irish Traveller group had the smallest percentage of people in the highest socio-economic groups. 2.5% were in the ‘higher, managerial, administrative, professional’ group.

15.1% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were small employers and own account workers. These are people who are generally self-employed and have responsibility for a small number of workers.

For Gypsy or Irish Travellers, who were 16 and over and in employment, the largest group worked in elementary occupations (22%). This can include occupations such as farm workers, process plant workers, cleaners, or service staff (for example, bar or cleaning staff).

The second highest occupation group was skilled trades (19%), which can include farmers, electrical and building trades. The Gypsy or Irish Traveller group had the highest percentage of elementary and skilled trade workers out of all ethnic groups.

7.2 Employment gender gap

The gender gap in employment rates for the Gypsy or Irish Traveller group aged 16 and over was nearly twice as large as for all ethnic groups combined. In the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group, 46% of men and 29% of women were employed, a gap of 17%. For all ethnic groups combined, 64% of men and 54% of women were employed, a gap of 10%.

This is likely to be due to the fact that Gypsy or Irish Traveller women (63%) were about 1.5 times as likely as Gypsy or Irish Traveller men (43%) to be economically inactive, which means they were out of work and not looking for work.

7.3 Economic inactivity

There are a range of reasons why people can be economically inactive. The most common reason for Gypsy or Irish Travellers being economically inactive was looking after the home or family (27%). This is higher than the average for England and Wales (11%). The second most common reason was being long term sick or disabled (26%) – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups.

8. Home ownership data

Figure 5: home ownership and renting among gypsy or irish traveller households and all households, table 5: home ownership and renting among gypsy or irish traveller households and all households.

Source: England, 2011 Census

In 2011, 34% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller households owned their own home, compared with a national average of 64%. 42% lived in social rented accommodation, compared with a national average of 18%.

In 2016 to 2017, 0.1% of new social housing lettings went to people from Gypsy or Irish Traveller backgrounds (429 lettings).

In 2011, a whole house or bungalow was the most common type of accommodation for Gypsy or Irish Traveller households (61%). This was lower than for all usual residents in England and Wales (84%).

Caravans or other mobile or temporary homes accounted for 24% of Gypsy or Irish Travellers accommodation, a far higher percentage than for the whole of England and Wales (0.3%).

The percentage of people living in a flat, maisonette or apartment was 15% for both Gypsy or Irish Travellers and all usual residents in England and Wales.

In 2011, 14.1% of Gypsy and Irish Traveller people in England and Wales rated their health as bad or very bad, compared with 5.6% on average for all ethnic groups.

In 2016 to 2017, Gypsy or Irish Traveller people aged 65 and over had the lowest health-related quality of life of all ethnic groups (average score of 0.509 out of 1). The quality of life scores for the White Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group are based on a small number of responses (around 35 each year) and are less reliable as a result.

Ethnicity facts and figures has information on satisfaction of different health services for different ethnic groups. For the results presented below, the Gypsy or Irish Traveller figures are based on a relatively small number of respondents, and are less reliable than figures for other ethnic groups.

In 2014 to 2015 (the most recent data available), these groups were the most satisfied with their experience of GP-out-of-hours service , with 75.2% reporting a positive experience.

In 2018 to 2019, they were less satisfied with their experience of GP services than most ethnic groups – 73.0% reported a positive experience.

They were also among the groups that had least success when booking an NHS dentist appointment – 89.0% reported successfully booking an appointment in 2018 to 2019.

The Gypsy or Irish Traveller group were also less satisfied with their access to GP services in 2018 to 2019 – 56.9% reported a positive experience of making a GP appointment, compared to an average of 67.4% for all respondents.

Publication release date: 31 January 2022

Updated: 29 March 2022

29 March 2022: Corrected A-level data in Table 3, and All ethnic groups data in Table 4. Corrected the legend in Figure 1 (map).

31 January 2022: Initial publication.

Gypsy Roma and Traveller History and Culture

Gypsy Roma and Traveller people belong to minority ethnic groups that have contributed to British society for centuries. Their distinctive way of life and traditions manifest themselves in nomadism, the centrality of their extended family, unique languages and entrepreneurial economy. It is reported that there are around 300,000 Travellers in the UK and they are one of the most disadvantaged groups. The real population may be different as some members of these communities do not participate in the census .

The Traveller Movement works predominantly with ethnic Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller Communities.

Irish Travellers and Romany Gypsies

Irish Travellers

Traditionally, Irish Travellers are a nomadic group of people from Ireland but have a separate identity, heritage and culture to the community in general. An Irish Traveller presence can be traced back to 12th century Ireland, with migrations to Great Britain in the early 19th century. The Irish Traveller community is categorised as an ethnic minority group under the Race Relations Act, 1976 (amended 2000); the Human Rights Act 1998; and the Equality Act 2010. Some Travellers of Irish heritage identify as Pavee or Minceir, which are words from the Irish Traveller language, Shelta.

Romany Gypsies

Romany Gypsies have been in Britain since at least 1515 after migrating from continental Europe during the Roma migration from India. The term Gypsy comes from “Egyptian” which is what the settled population perceived them to be because of their dark complexion. In reality, linguistic analysis of the Romani language proves that Romany Gypsies, like the European Roma, originally came from Northern India, probably around the 12th century. French Manush Gypsies have a similar origin and culture to Romany Gypsies.

There are other groups of Travellers who may travel through Britain, such as Scottish Travellers, Welsh Travellers and English Travellers, many of whom can trace a nomadic heritage back for many generations and who may have married into or outside of more traditional Irish Traveller and Romany Gypsy families. There were already indigenous nomadic people in Britain when the Romany Gypsies first arrived hundreds of years ago and the different cultures/ethnicities have to some extent merged.

Number of Gypsies and Travellers in Britain

This year, the 2021 Census included a “Roma” category for the first time, following in the footsteps of the 2011 Census which included a “Gypsy and Irish Traveller” category. The 2021 Census statistics have not yet been released but the 2011 Census put the combined Gypsy and Irish Traveller population in England and Wales as 57,680. This was recognised by many as an underestimate for various reasons. For instance, it varies greatly with data collected locally such as from the Gypsy Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessments, which total the Traveller population at just over 120,000, according to our research.

Other academic estimates of the combined Gypsy, Irish Traveller and other Traveller population range from 120,000 to 300,000. Ethnic monitoring data of the Gypsy Traveller population is rarely collected by key service providers in health, employment, planning and criminal justice.

Where Gypsies and Travellers Live

Although most Gypsies and Travellers see travelling as part of their identity, they can choose to live in different ways including:

• moving regularly around the country from site to site and being ‘on the road’
• living permanently in caravans or mobile homes, on sites provided by the council, or on private sites
• living in settled accommodation during winter or school term-time, travelling during the summer months
• living in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing, settled together, but still retaining a strong commitment to Gypsy/Traveller culture and traditions

Currently, their nomadic life is being threatened by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, that is currently being deliberated in Parliament, To find out more or get involved with opposing this bill, please visit here

Although Travellers speak English in most situations, they often speak to each other in their own language; for Irish Travellers this is called Cant or Gammon* and Gypsies speak Romani, which is the only indigenous language in the UK with Indic roots.

*Sometimes referred to as “Shelta” by linguists and academics

New Travellers and Show People

There are also Traveller groups which are known as ‘cultural’ rather than ‘ethnic’ Travellers. These include ‘new’ Travellers and Showmen. Most of the information on this page relates to ethnic Travellers but ‘Showmen’ do share many cultural traits with ethnic Travellers.

Show People are a cultural minority that have owned and operated funfairs and circuses for many generations and their identity is connected to their family businesses. They operate rides and attractions that can be seen throughout the summer months at funfairs. They generally have winter quarters where the family settles to repair the machinery that they operate and prepare for the next travelling season. Most Show People belong to the Showmen’s Guild which is an organisation that provides economic and social regulation and advocacy for Show People. The Showman’s Guild works with both central and local governments to protect the economic interests of its members.

The term New Travellers refers to people sometimes referred to as “New Age Travellers”. They are generally people who have taken to life ‘on the road’ in their own lifetime, though some New Traveller families claim to have been on the road for three consecutive generations. The New Traveller culture grew out of the hippie and free-festival movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Barge Travellers are similar to New Travellers but live on the UK’s 2,200 miles of canals. They form a distinct group in the canal network and many are former ‘new’ Travellers who moved onto the canals after changes to the law made the free festival circuit and a life on the road almost untenable. Many New Travellers have also settled into private sites or rural communes although a few groups are still travelling.

If you are a new age Traveller and require support please contact Friends, Families, and Travellers (FFT) .

Differences and Values

Differences Between Gypsies, Travellers, and Roma

Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are often categorised together under the “Roma” definition in Europe and under the acronym “GRT” in Britain. These communities and other nomadic groups, such as Scottish and English Travellers, Show People and New Travellers, share a number of characteristics in common: the importance of family and/or community networks; the nomadic way of life, a tendency toward self-employment, experience of disadvantage and having the poorest health outcomes in the United Kingdom.

The Roma communities also originated from India from around the 10th/ 12th centuries and have historically faced persecution, including slavery and genocide. They are still marginalised and ghettoised in many Eastern European countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania etc) where they are often the largest and most visible ethnic minority group, sometimes making up 10% of the total population. However, ‘Roma’ is a political term and a self-identification of many Roma activists. In reality, European Roma populations are made up of various subgroups, some with their own form of Romani, who often identify as that group rather than by the all-encompassing Roma identity.

Travellers and Roma each have very different customs, religion, language and heritage. For instance, Gypsies are said to have originated in India and the Romani language (also spoken by Roma) is considered to consist of at least seven varieties, each a language in their own right.

Values and Culture of GRT Communities

Family, extended family bonds and networks are very important to the Gypsy and Traveller way of life, as is a distinct identity from the settled ‘Gorja’ or ‘country’ population. Family anniversaries, births, weddings and funerals are usually marked by extended family or community gatherings with strong religious ceremonial content. Gypsies and Travellers generally marry young and respect their older generation. Contrary to frequent media depiction, Traveller communities value cleanliness and tidiness.

Many Irish Travellers are practising Catholics, while some Gypsies and Travellers are part of a growing Christian Evangelical movement.

Gypsy and Traveller culture has always adapted to survive and continues to do so today. Rapid economic change, recession and the gradual dismantling of the ‘grey’ economy have driven many Gypsy and Traveller families into hard times. The criminalisation of ‘travelling’ and the dire shortage of authorised private or council sites have added to this. Some Travellers describe the effect that this is having as “a crisis in the community” . A study in Ireland put the suicide rate of Irish Traveller men as 3-5 times higher than the wider population. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the same phenomenon is happening amongst Traveller communities in the UK.

Gypsies and Travellers are also adapting to new ways, as they have always done. Most of the younger generation and some of the older generation use social network platforms to stay in touch and there is a growing recognition that reading and writing are useful tools to have. Many Gypsies and Travellers utilise their often remarkable array of skills and trades as part of the formal economy. Some Gypsies and Travellers, many supported by their families, are entering further and higher education and becoming solicitors, teachers, accountants, journalists and other professionals.

There have always been successful Gypsy and Traveller businesses, some of which are household names within their sectors, although the ethnicity of the owners is often concealed. Gypsies and Travellers have always been represented in the fields of sport and entertainment.

How Gypsies and Travellers Are Disadvantaged

The Traveller, Gypsy, and Roma communities are widely considered to be among the most socially excluded communities in the UK. They have a much lower life expectancy than the general population, with Traveller men and women living 10-12 years less than the wider population.

Travellers have higher rates of infant mortality, maternal death and stillbirths than the general population. They experience racist sentiment in the media and elsewhere, which would be socially unacceptable if directed at any other minority community. Ofsted consider young Travellers to be one of the groups most at risk of low attainment in education.

Government services rarely include Traveller views in the planning and delivery of services.

In recent years, there has been increased political networking between the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller activists and campaign organisations.

Watch this video by Travellers Times made for Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month 2021:

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Traveller in Irland – Die letzten Nomaden

Möglicherweise lässt der Anblick dieses Titels Euch zunächst einmal stutzen. Es kommt schließlich nicht allzu häufig vor, dass die Begriffe „Irland“ und „Nomaden“ in einem Atemzug gebraucht werden. Auch sind wahrscheinlich die wenigsten Irlandreisenden jemals einer Gruppe Irish Travellers begegnet oder haben deren am Stadtrand oder auf einem öffentlichen Parkplatz abgestellte Wohnwagen bemerkt. Ein guter Grund, hier einmal einen genaueren Blick auf die „Traveller“ genannten irischen Nomaden und ihre spezielle Lebensweise zu werfen.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Die Geschichte der Irish Traveller

Die herkunft der irish traveller.

Man kennt die Irish Traveller auch als Pavees, Tinker, Itinerants (englisch für Umherziehende) Minceir und, auf Irisch, Lucht Siuil. Die Nomaden selbst ziehen die Bezeichnung Traveller oder Pavee vor. Doch egal, welchen Namen sie nun vorziehen, eines ist allen Mitgliedern der Traveller gemeinsam: Sie gehören zum „fahrenden Volk“, praktizieren also ein Leben ohne festen Wohnsitz. Über die Geschichte und Herkunft dieser ethnischen Gruppe gibt es unterschiedliche Theorien.

Laut einer dieser Meinungen existieren die Irish Traveller bereits seit den Zeiten Oliver Cromwells . Der englische Eroberer habe sie von ihrem irischen Landbesitz vertrieben und somit dazu gezwungen, die Straße zu ihrem Zuhause zu machen. Andere Traveller führen ihren Ursprung auf die große irische Hungersnot in den 1840er Jahren zurück, die sie zum Nomadendasein gezwungen habe.

Allerdings besteht Grund zu der Annahme, dass die Entstehung der Traveller noch weit vor dieser Zeit liegt. Bereits in keltischer und möglicherweise sogar vor-keltischer Zeit lebte in Irland ein gewisser Teil der Bevölkerung als Nomaden. Seit dem 12. Jahrhundert existiert außerdem die Bezeichnung „Tynkler“ oder „Tynker“ für eine Gruppe Nomaden, die ihre eigene Identität, Sprache und Gesellschaft entwickelte. Sie bildeten quasi den Grundstock der Irish Traveller, der später, z.B. während der Hungersnot durch enteignete, verarmte oder verhungernde Menschen ergänzt wurde.

Von Irland in die ganze Welt

Aus dem Jahr 1850 stammt einer der ersten Berichte über irische Traveller in England. Wie so viele andere arme, am Rand der Gesellschaft stehende Menschen in Irland hofften auch die Traveller, in der Fremde ein besseres Leben zu finden.

Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg gab es eine weitere Auswanderungswelle unter den Travellers. Sie emigrierten nach England, um Straßen zu bauen und in Fabriken zu arbeiten. Viele von ihnen lebten in der Nähe großer Städte wie London, Manchester, Liverpool und Birmingham. Später verbreiteten sie sich aber über ganz England.

Geoff Charles creator QS:P170,Q5534081 Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales from Wales/Cymru, Irish gypsies in Anglesey (6435402561) , CC0 1.0

Ein geringerer Anteil an Pavees wanderte auch in die USA, nach Kanada und Australien aus. Hier war und ist ihr Lebensstandard im Allgemeinen höher als in der alten Heimat.

Auch bei uns in Deutschland sind – allerdings nur gelegentlich – irische Landfahrer anzutreffen. In größeren Gruppen versammeln sie sich hier zu gemeinsamen Festen wie Hochzeiten oder traditionellen Feierlichkeiten wie dem St. Patrick‘s Day.

Die Kultur der Traveller

Mit mobilen heimen durch die lande.

Das herausragendste Merkmal der Pavee-Lebensweise ist, wie angeklungen, ihr Leben als Nomaden. Noch vor fünfzig Jahren lebten sehr viele Traveller in Zelten oder von Pferden gezogenen Planwagen – daher rührt auch der heute noch übliche Begriff „ Tinker Pferde „. Heute jedoch besitzen die meisten von ihnen einen mehr oder minder modernen Caravan. Mit dem sie noch immer durch die Lande ziehen oder den sie auf einem von der Gemeinde festgelegten Areal abstellen. Lediglich eine kleine Anzahl Traveller lebt in „Mobile Homes“ oder gar Häusern.

Ebenso entscheidend zum Dasein eines Travellers gehört auch das Leben im großen Familienverband. Im Verständnis des Travellers ist es die Familie, die in Zeiten der Not Schutz und Unterstützung bietet. Dementsprechend legen sie große Betonung auf ihre Gemeinschaft, verbringen viel Zeit miteinander und praktizieren Werte wie Respekt und Fürsorge für ältere Familienmitglieder. Das Netzwerk der Familien bildet den Grundstock ihrer Gesellschaft. Selbst die Ehen werden größtenteils innerhalb dieser engen Gesellschaft geschlossen.

Außerdem ist das Heim der Familie gleichzeitig auch der „Arbeitsplatz“. Nur wenige Traveller arbeiten als Angestellte (für Außenstehende) außerhalb ihres Heimes. Die meisten von ihnen sind selbstständig. Traditionell waren sie das, was wir als Kesselflicker (Tinker) bezeichnen. Gingen hausieren, sammelten Altmetall, machten Landarbeit, handelten mit Pferden und auf Märkten und machten Musik. Heute betätigen sie sich häufig im Haus- und Straßenbau und in Autowerkstätten. Selbstverständlich aber gibt es auch unter den Travellers Mitglieder mit einem höheren Bildungsabschluss, die als Lehrer, Sozialarbeiter oder in der Armee beschäftigt sind.

Musik und Sprache der Traveller

Musik und Storytelling spielten seit jeher eine große Rolle in der Pavee-Kultur. Durch ihr ständiges Umherziehen „transportierten“ sie Lieder und Geschichten von einer Gemeinde zur anderen, wobei sie ihren ganz eigenen Stil entwickelten. Sie übten einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Folk-Music aus. Der 1950 geborene Paddy Keenan mit seiner Uilleann Pipe beispielsweise ist weit über Irlands Grenzen hinaus bekannt und gewann 2011 den Irish Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

Zu ihrem kulturellen Erbe gehört für die Traveller außerdem das Besuchen von Märkten beziehungsweise Jahrmärkten. Auch religiöse Feste und Wallfahrten gehören in diese Kategorie. Dafür legen die Nomaden bereitwillig auch größere Entfernungen zurück und reisen sogar bis nach Deutschland. Ein besonders beliebtes Ziel ist seit langer Zeit der Pferdemarkt in Appleby/England. Hier treffen sich bis heute große Gruppen der Landfahrer, feiern, erneuern alte Freundschaften und schließen neue geschäftliche Allianzen, handeln und verhandeln.

Philip Halling, Stow Horse Fair – geograph.org.uk – 1576355 , CC BY-SA 2.0

Auch die Sprache hat erheblich dazu beigetragen, dass die Traveller eine ganz spezielle Identität entwickelt und bis in die Gegenwart bewahrt haben. Mit Shelta beziehungsweise Cant sprechen die Pavee nämlich voller Stolz ihre eigene Sprache. Die Bezeichnung Shelta geht wahrscheinlich auf das Irische Siulta zurück und bedeutet Auf Wanderschaft; die Sprache selbst ist eine Mischung aus irisch-gälischen, englischen und weiteren Elementen. Ebenso geläufig ist den irischen Nomaden natürlich die englische und irische Sprache.

Das Nomadenleben der Irish Traveller heute

Mit dem entschiedenen Festhalten an dieser Kultur leben die Traveller gewissermaßen in zwei Welten: ihrer eigenen Nomadenwelt und gleichzeitig der Welt der „ortsansässigen“ Einwohner Irlands. Und haben es damit nicht immer einfach. Denn wer sich in einer so offensichtlichen Art und Weise von der übrigen Gesellschaft eines Landes abhebt, stößt nicht unbedingt auf Gegenliebe. Egal, wo sie auch hinkommen, stoßen die Pavee auf Vorbehalte. Vorurteile. Diskriminierung. Beschränkungen, die ihnen von Gesellschaft und Staat aufgelegt werden.

Auf öffentlichen Parkplätzen sind die Caravans der Traveller verboten und die Grundstücke, die Städte und Gemeinden ihnen als Stellplätze zuweisen, liegen oft sehr unvorteilhaft am Rand der Stadt und sind nicht gut in Stand gehalten. Zudem gibt es zu wenige davon, sodass es den Travellern schon an legalem Wohnraum mangelt. Der irische Film „Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl“ aus dem Jahr 2005 greift diese Probleme sehr anschaulich auf.

Betty Longbottom, Leighton Street Travellers‘ Site – geograph.org.uk – 529138 , CC BY-SA 2.0

Insgesamt leben derzeit etwa 25000 Traveller beziehungsweise 4500 Travellerfamilien in Irland. Weitere 15000 in Großbritannien und rund 10000 in den USA. Organisationen wie das Irish Travellers‘ Movement ITM setzen sich in Irland und Großbritannien erfolgreich für deren Belange und soziale Probleme ein. So wurden die irischen Nomaden am 1. März 2017 offiziell als ethnische Minderheit anerkannt.

Durch Irland reisen wie die Traveller?

Mit unseren Planwagenreisen im Wicklow und Mayo kommt Abenteuerstimmung auf!

Möchtest Du eine Reise zu Dir antreten?

Wächst in Dir die Sehnsucht, Dein Leben langsamer, tiefer und bewusster zu erleben? Möchtest Du eine Reise zu Dir selbst in Irland unternehmen? Auf Dich wartet eine Reise, die so individuell und wunderbar ist wie Du.

>> Weitere Infos <<

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Über den autor.

Monika Dockter

Als Schriftstellerin bedeutet Irland für mich Inspiration in ihrer schönsten Form. Ich finde diese Inspiration in den Worten begnadeter irischer „Storyteller“, zwischen den verschlungenen Wurzeln einer uralten Eiche und auf der Brücke über einen Bach, dessen Wasser vom Torf so braun ist wie der Ginster am Ufer gelb… Für die gruene-Insel.de zu schreiben betrachte ich als einmalige Gelegenheit, etwas von der für mich so faszinierenden Atmosphäre dieses Landes weiterzugeben – und zwar an eingefleischte Irlandfans ebenso wie an solche, die genau das einmal werden wollen.

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Census 2022 Profile 5 - Diversity, Migration, Ethnicity, Irish Travellers & Religion

• Irish Travellers

Census 2022 Results

This publication is part of a  series of results  from Census 2022. More thematic publications will be published throughout 2023 as outlined in the Census 2022  Publication Schedule .

The number of Irish Travellers living in the State and counted in Census 2022 was 32,949, an increase of 6% from 30,987 in the 2016 census. Irish Travellers make up less than 1% of the population so, for comparison purposes, it can be helpful to use rates per 1,000 of the population. This shows that in Census 2022, six out of 1,000 people in the State were Irish Travellers. The proportion of Irish Travellers in the population varied from county to county.

In Galway City, 21 out of every 1,000 people were Irish Travellers, in Longford, the rate was 20 per 1,000 of the population and in Offaly, it was 14 per 1,000.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had the lowest number of Irish Travellers per 1,000 of the population with just under two Irish Travellers for every 1,000 people.

In Kildare and Dublin City, there were just under four Irish Travellers for every 1,000 people.

The Irish Traveller population increased in most counties, the largest rise being recorded in Offaly, up 30% to 1,174.

The Traveller population also increased by more than 200 in Cork (up 11% to 2,376), Fingal (up 17% to 1,545) and Tipperary (up 17% to 1,434).

There were drops in the number of Irish Travellers in some counties; the largest were recorded in Longford (down 13% to 913) and South Dublin (down 12% to 1,943).

Note: The analysis of Irish travellers is based on the usually resident population. The corresponding de facto figures in 2022 and 2016 were 33,033 and 31,075, respectively.

The figure for Irish Travellers has a pyramid shape as opposed to the hourglass shape of the figure for the total population. This reflects higher fertility rates and lower average life expectancy among the Irish Traveller population than in the overall population.

Children under the age of 15 made up 36% of Irish Travellers compared with 20% of the total population. At a national level, 15% of the total population was aged 65 years and over while for Irish Travellers, the equivalent figure was just 5%.

Marital Status of Irish Travellers

Overall, 45% of Irish Travellers aged 15 years and over were single, up from 40% in 2016. The proportion of married Travellers dropped from 49% in 2016 to 44% in 2022.

Irish Traveller men were more likely to be either single (47%) or married (46%) than Irish Traveller women (42% single and 42% married).

Around 10% of Irish Traveller women were separated or divorced compared with 5% of Irish Traveller men.

Irish Traveller women were also more likely to be widowed (5%) than Irish Traveller men (2%).

Over 85% of Irish Travellers aged 15 to 24 years were single while 13% were married.

The proportion that were married increased to 49% for 25 to 34 year olds.

Among Irish Travellers aged 55 to 64 years, 14% were separated or divorced compared with 8% of Travellers aged 65 and over.

Overall, 25% of Irish Travellers aged 65 and over were widowed; the figure for Traveller women aged 65 and over was 35% and 15% for Traveller men.

Long-Lasting Conditions and Difficulties

There were 8,577 Irish Travellers who reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent, accounting for 26% of the Traveller population. In comparison, 22% of the total population living in the State reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent.

Breaking this down further, 15% of Irish Travellers (4,952 people) reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent or a lot compared with 8% of all people living in Ireland.

Another 11% of Irish Travellers (3,625 people) reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to some extent or a little while the comparable figure for the total population was 14%.

The overall proportion of Irish Travellers experiencing a long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent was slightly higher for men (27%) than women (25%). Looking at the total population, women (22%) were more likely to experience a long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent than men (21%).

Of all children under the age of 15 living in the State, 4% reported experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent compared with 7% of Traveller children.

The proportion of 15 to 29 year old Irish Travellers experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent (13%) was more than twice that of all people in the same age cohort (6%).

Between the ages of 30 and 59, the proportion of the population experiencing at least one long-lasting condition or difficulty to a great extent was over three times higher for Irish Travellers (21%) than the total population (6%).

Among the older age cohorts, the differences were less pronounced, and Irish Travellers over the age of 80 were slightly less likely to experience a long-lasting condition or difficulty to any extent than would be expected in the overall population.

General Health

The question on general health shows that 22,050 Irish Travellers reported their general health as being good or very good (67%) while a further 3,899 Irish Travellers reported fair health status (12%).

There were 1,350 Irish Travellers reporting their health as bad or very bad, 4% of the Traveller population. This is twice as high as the proportion of the total population who reported their health as bad or very bad (2%).

The level of non-response in this question was quite high for Irish Travellers, at 17%, compared with 7% for the total population.

In the overall population, the proportion of people with good or very good health decreased slowly with age, up until the age of 70 when the decrease rate started to accelerate.

In the Irish Traveller population, the proportion of people with good or very good health decreased steadily with age up until the age of 70 at which point, the rate of decrease slowed down.

There were 5,427 Irish Travellers who were daily smokers in Census 2022, or 16% of the Traveller population compared with 9% of the total population.

Just under half of Irish Travellers had never smoked compared with 60% of the total population.

Some 9% of Travellers had given up smoking, compared with 19% for the total population.

Looking at smoking by age shows that one in three Irish Travellers between the ages of 25 and 54 were daily smokers.

Irish Traveller Households

There were 29,900 Irish Travellers living in private households in Census 2022. The majority were living in permanent housing, while 2,286 people were living in temporary housing units such as caravans and mobile homes.

The proportion of Irish Travellers living in private households who were living in caravans, mobile homes or other temporary accommodation was 8% in 2022, down from 12% in 2016.

In Fingal, 18% of Travellers were living in temporary accommodation, the highest proportion in the country in Census 2022.

In Dublin City, Kilkenny and Tipperary, 14% of Irish Travellers were living in temporary housing.

Household Size

There were 9,448 private households containing Irish Travellers. These households had an average size of 4 persons per household compared to an average size of 2.7 for the total population.

Irish Traveller households were largest in Leitrim, Roscommon and Kildare with an average size of 4.6 persons, followed by Clare with 4.5 persons per household.

The counties where the average size of Irish Traveller households was smallest were Dublin City with 3.5 persons per household and Louth, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Donegal (all with 3.6 persons per household).

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'Revolving door': Traveller women imprisoned for minor offences such as driving without tax

TRAVELLER WOMEN ARE being imprisoned for minor first time offences such as driving without tax, shoplifting and crimes linked to addiction, an Oireachtas committee has heard.  

Almost one quarter – 25% – of the women at the Dóchas Centre women’s prison were Traveller women, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector of Prisons in 2019, despite adult Travellers making up just 0.5% of the total population of the country. 

Advocates yesterday told TDs and Senators that there is an impression that Traveller women are more likely to receive a prison sentence than a settled person who commits a similar crime.

The Oireachtas Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community heard calls  for a move away from custodial sentences for minor offences which are creating “a revolving door” of re-offending among Traveller women.

• Read more here on how you can support a major Noteworthy project to investigate if Travellers experience harsher interactions with the Irish law and prison system.

Anne Costello, coordinator at the Travellers in Prison Initiative (TPI), told the committee that their research found many Traveller women in prison were there for minor crimes.

“It was for driving offences, shoplifting, a number of crimes linked to addiction,” she said.

“Women described their stories of trauma around close family members and suicide, or other bereavements, and then moving on to prescribed drugs, and then that leading into harder drugs. That was the kind of the story that we got generally from the women.”

Maria Joyce, coordinator with the National Traveller Women’s Forum, told the committee that she has worked with women in the Dóchas Centre who are there because they were caught driving without tax or insurance.

“Sometimes these are first offences and some felt a non-custodial sentence would have addressed the level of crime,” she said.

She said there was a strong perception that “it’s one option for a Traveller in the criminal justice system and another outcome for a non-Traveller” for similar crimes and that a different approach involving community supports could help to prevent re-offending. 

Fíona Ní Chinnéide, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT), told the committee that specific data on recidivism among Travellers is not available.

However general data shows “people sentenced to prison for between three and six months had the highest probability of re-offending within one year of release”.

“The highest rates of early re-offending are among those in prison for short sentences, which by definition are less serious offences,” she said.

Speakers at the committee meeting today also raised concerns about the impact on Traveller children of having a parent in prison.

“People say ‘expose young people to prison and they won’t go there’, but so many Travellers in prison have been to prison to visit their fathers and now they’re in prison,” Costello said.

“That doesn’t work, with that inter-generational [factor] you’re much more likely to end up in prison if your parents have been in prison.

Maria Joyce said leaving their families and their children is a significant issue for Traveller women in prison and can create problems with access on their release.

“When you have children who may already be in care, there are additional barriers that will be created on their [the women's] release in trying to engage with their children, or if they’ve gone into care as a direct result of them going into prison,” she explained. “It’s not about ensuring the care of children but it is about ensuring contact with parents.”

Ní Chinnéide of the IPRT said the imprisonment of a parent should not be seen as “a predictor” of a child’s outcome as they will all have different responses to these types of situations.

What is common, she said, is their “experience of trauma, of separation, stigma, poverty”. Ní Chinnéide added: “We need to support those children, support them to have better outcomes in the long run.”

The committee was covered as part of an investigation called TOUGH START Noteworthy and The Journal  over the past number of months into supports – and the lack of them – for Traveller children. We can now reveal

• Young Travellers are significantly over-represented in youth detention , making up 26% of Oberstown detainees last year, but just 1.2% of the under-18 population as a whole
• Travellers detained in Oberstown jumped by almost 40% in 2020   
• An Oireachtas committee heard concerns about the impact on children of having a parent in prison , particularly in relation to Traveller mothers who received prison sentences for first-time and minor offences
• Department of Justice officials noted Travellers were “a particular challenge that requires additional action” in regards to the Youth Justice Strategy at a meeting two months prior to its publication, yet there are no Traveller-specific actions in the strategy
• Traveller children reported experiencing discrimination from members of the gardaí and being falsely accused of crimes by members of the public
• Children who spoke to Noteworthy also said they felt fear and anxiety around interactions with gardaí and that they believed people expect them to engage in criminal activity

In part one , Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman told Noteworthy that “there’s ingrained institutional racism against the Traveller community” and part two  found Traveller health is ‘not being prioritised’ despite ‘shocking’ outcomes for children.  Part three revealed that ‘misuse’ of reduced school days is leaving a generation of Traveller children ‘lost’.

Increase of young Travellers in detention

There is already a disproportionate number of young Travellers in detention in Ireland and this jumped by almost 40% in 2020. 

Young people under 18 who have been sentenced or remanded by the Irish courts system are detained in Oberstown Children Detention Campus in north county Dublin. The majority detained there are boys, with only three girls (2.5%) detained last year. 

There were 24 young Travellers in Oberstown  in 2019  which made up 19% of the total number of young people detailed there. However, this increased to 32 in 2020 or 26% of the total, according to  Oberstown’s annual report . 

This is also an increase on figures reported by the snapshot reports – published with figures from the first quarter of  2017 ,  2018  and  2019 . These reported young Travellers made up 23%, 22% and 19% of the population during these respective quarters.

This is significantly higher than it should be in proportion to the number of Travellers under 18, making up just 1.2% of the general population in the last Census in 2016. 

This is also an over-representation of Travellers in the adult prison population, where it was estimated in 2017 by the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service that Travellers accounted for 10% of the male and 22% of the female prison population. 

Speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Committee, Mark Wilson, director of the Probation Service, said that Travellers represent 11.3% of people seen by the Probation Service which he said were the latest ethnicity statistics available.

Fergal Black, Director of Care and Rehabilitation in the Irish Prison Service, gave the committee figures from the last ethnicity survey. He reported that Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon had 95 people who identified as Travellers – 31% of that prison’s population, “which is an indictment of the over-representation [of Travellers] in our criminal justice system”.

Though already high, these prison system figures are most likely an under-representation “due to the lack of consistent and accurate data collection” – including ethnicity – by the Irish Prison Services, according to Pavee Point. 

Representatives from both the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service mentioned work to improve on the existing efforts at the Joint Oireachtas Committee, with Wilson stating that they have worked extensively with the Travellers in Prison Initiative “in the area of ethnic data collection” to its improve accuracy and consistency.

Experts have said a number of factors contribute to the over-representation of the Traveller community in the criminal justice system, besides the possibility of overly-punitive sentencing, including poverty, exclusion, discrimination, a lack of access to housing and educational disadvantages. These issues start for Travellers at a very early age, they said, and early intervention is needed to prevent the ongoing cycle.

A poor relationship and lack of trust between Travellers – including children – and those working in the criminal justice system is also a factor. 

‘They dislike us, I don’t know why’

Traveller children, aged 12-14, who spoke to Noteworthy reported feeling fear around interactions with gardaí and that they believe gardaí assume they will do something criminal. 

When asked what they believe gardaí think about Travellers, three of the children said “bad” at the same time.

“They dislike us, I don’t know why,” one of the girls said.

“I think most people expect us to do bad things, or make us out as bad people,” another girl said.

“The guards think, if someone robbed something, most likely it’s Travellers,” another told us. 

The children also gave several examples of being wrongfully accused of shoplifting by security guards. One boy said:

One of the girls said she was with her mother at a shop when two gardaí stopped them and asked them to empty their pockets.

“It was scary,” she said. “There was nothing in our pockets. I started crying.”

She said they apologised after she became upset.

All of the children said they were afraid of gardaí and that they also notice their parents’ anxiety when they see gardaí.

“My daddy, if we’re driving past guards, he’ll turn around really quick even though we all have our belts on and he’ll say ‘put on your belts in case the guards pull us over’,” one of the boys told us.

A community worker with the group said two gardaí had come to give a talk to the children at their community centre and this had been a positive experience. However she said one of these gardaí was later called to an incident at the halting site and when the children recognised him and tried to talk to him, he “ignored them”.

The only positive example they could think of came from one of the boys, who said if he sees a garda he sometimes give them a thumbs up and “they would actually do it back 99.9% of the time”.

When asked whether they felt like the gardaí would help them if something bad happened to them or their families all of the children in the group replied “no”. They would be reluctant to even call for help, they said.

“People can be arguing and if anyone gets physical you need to call the guards so they don’t hurt each other very badly,” one girl said. “And sometimes they don’t come at all until the whole thing’s over and everyone’s back in their houses. They take their time coming anyways.”

John Paul Collins, drug and alcohol community development worker at Pavee Point, said the negative relationship between Travellers and gardaí “starts at a very young age”. 

“It has always been a negative relationship with guards back to the very start, in terms of them coming on site and incidents being overpoliced, being heavy-handed,” he said.

“It’s usually the case that they’d come in fives or tens, cars and vans, sometimes dressed in riot gear and that’s the sort of stuff young kids are seeing. That puts a block straight away to develop any relationship.

Kids are around and listening and absorbing what the guards say and what their parents and other Travellers say. What the children are seeing is only negative behaviour, the only time they see a guard on site is when incidents happen, they’re not seeing a community guard on site trying to build relationships with them.

As mentioned by the children who spoke to Noteworthy , Collins said the response can be at the other end of the spectrum with gardaí arriving late or not at all when they are called to an incident at a halting site.

An Garda Síochána has made a number of policy and resourcing changes in recent years to ensure a more sensitive and considered approach to violence against women in the home. However Collins said there is “no notion of this” in responses to domestic violence calls from the Traveller community.

He said there is a genuine fear that the gardaí will “make things worse”.

“Unfortunately that has been the experience, they come in all booted up and don’t handle the situation in a positive way,” he said.

“Some have even said at incidents that it’s just part of our culture – violence and domestic violence. It’s ridiculous for someone in that profession to say something like that.”

‘Housing, poverty, mental health and trauma’

Speaking to the Oireachtas committee yesterday, Anne Costello of TPI said some of the causes of Travellers’ over-representation in prison are historic.

International research on minority ethnic groups, she said, identified causes such as the disruption of culture and traditions and a denial of identity as well as the process of stripping minorities of land, culture, language, laws and customs.

In Ireland these issues date back to the report of the Commission on Itinerancy in 1963 which stated that there was a “problem of the presence of itinerants in considerable numbers”. This report stated that “itinerants as a class would disappear within a generation”.

Since then, there have been many laws and policies introduced, which have had a negative impact on Travellers’ way of life and legitimate ways to make a living. And it wasn’t until 2017 that the government formally recognised travellers as an ethnic minority.

Costello also spoke of other causes such as the effects of poverty and exclusion, noting that the unemployment rate among Travellers is 80%, and 39% of Travellers are homeless or living in very overcrowded conditions

Noteworthy has extensively covered the stark outcomes facing Travellers children in health and education in the other parts of this investigative series – and will be examining housing next week. 

Women, she said, face particular issues:

“Before imprisonment they have issues with housing, poverty, mental health and trauma. We did some research with Traveller women in prison and they all faced those issues.”

Discrimination, both by State services and in the criminal justice system, is also contributing to the issue, Costello told the committee.

An ESRI report in 2017 found that Travellers are over 22 times more likely to experience discrimination in access to private services than white settled people.

An internal garda survey conducted between 2012 and 2014 found not one frontline garda had a favourable view of the Traveller community.

Discrimination was also evident among garda ethnic liaison officers – now known as diversity officers – with just 32% saying they had a good opinion of Travellers after joining the force. Before joining, 45% of these ethnic liaison officers said they had a poor or very poor opinion of the community.

An Garda Síochána did not respond to a number of questions from Noteworthy on specific measures in the Garda Youth Diversion Programme targeted at young Travellers, allegations of over-policing, and cultural awareness training provided to gardaí.

‘More work to do to prevent discrimination’

For advocates, one solution to these high detention rates in young Travellers was the State’s Youth Justice Strategy. In their submission as part of consultation last year, Pavee Point wrote that the strategy “should seek to support the families of Travellers and Roma to divert young people away from crime”. It continued:  

“Research shows strong links between youth offending and child and family welfare issues and therefore offending behaviour should not be considered in isolation.” 

Their submission called on “specific measures and initiatives for Travellers and Roma” to be included. It also quoted a European Commission Assessment of Ireland in 2016 that stated:

Antiracism and cultural competency training was one action Pavee Point called for in their submission, according to Corrine Doyle, Drug and Alcohol Programme Coordinator at Pavee Point. This is important “for people working with Travellers in diversion programmes or detention centres so they have an understanding of Traveller culture and barriers faced and the additional work needed”.  

In his opening statement yesterday, Fergal Black of the Irish Prison Service told the Joint Committee of “the introduction of awareness training for new prison staff on the issues arising for Travellers and areas of discrimination” over the past six years through the prison service’s partnership with the Travellers in Prison Initiative.

In the youth justice system, Pavee Point has completed some information sessions at Oberstown but Doyle said the organisation was given no additional resources for this. Given the high turnover of both staff and residents at the centre, she said this type of information programme would have to operate on a more regular basis to be effective.

“Challenging some of the bias and even unconscious bias and trying to work through that, that can’t just be done in information sessions.” 

John Paul Collins, the community development worker, said that their organisation has also delivered “anti racism and cultural competency training to garda recruits” over the years.

He said that Pavee Point has had ongoing discussions with the garda training college at Templemore and with senior gardaí, including the current Commissioner, and has stressed the need for this training to be a credited module for recruits, rather than a once-off discussion.

They should be marked on it and it should be delivered either by Traveller organisations or we’d do a training course for senior gardai to deliver it. A once-off [class] for 250 recruits doesn’t do it.

He said this type of training should be part of continuous professional development for gardaí, particularly when it comes to promotions.

Seamus Beirne, Equality, Inclusion and Diversity Lead at the Irish Prison Service, told the committee that measuring the impact of this training “can be difficult”. He added they intend to conduct a survey and monitor attitudes to help measure the impact, though this was delayed due to Covid. He added:

“There is a certain culture in Ireland, and a prison is a microcosm of the country. So, changing a culture takes a while.”

On this, Fergal Black said: “We have more work to do to prevent discrimination – that’s the honest answer.”

On training, the Travellers in Prison Initiative’s Costello concluded at the committee that it “works with some people” and they had success with probation staff. She continued:

“With other staff and other organisations, where you’ve got deeply embedded racist attitudes, the only response is zero tolerance. The prison is a very hierarchical organisation – I think it needs to come from the very top – that there will be consequences for racist behaviour. And I think that’s where you’ll see real change.”

Department aware of ‘additional action’ required

Noteworthy  sought correspondence and memos within the Department of Justice that mentioned Travellers in relation to the Youth Justice Strategy in the months leading up to its publication in April.

Just five records were found through the freedom of information (FOI) request, but from these it is clear that DOJ officials knew of the extra challenges facing young Travellers.  

In February 2021, at a meeting and presentation between DOJ officials and a person from the School of Law in UL, it was noted that “the Youth Justice Strategy will ensure a greater focus on such groups (Traveller, Roma and migrant groups), with Travellers being a particular challenge that requires additional action”.  

Yet, when the Youth Justice Strategy was published two months later, Travellers only received two mentions – both alongside a number of other groups  – and there were no Traveller-specific actions listed. 

In the ‘Disadvantage and Diversity’ section, Travellers were included in a wide-ranging group that the strategy emphasised “the need for State and State-funded services to engage effectively with”. This is the list as it is written:  

Poverty, Children and Young People in State Care, Travellers and other Ethnic Communities, Mental Health, Neuro-Diversity, Homelessness, Children of Prisoners, Childhood Trauma, Coercive Control, Addiction, Gender Differences, Disability, Differences in Maturity and Individual Learning abilities.

The only action Travellers are mentioned in, is in relation to the continued development of Garda Youth Diversion Projects, with an action to ensure these projects “reach all relevant young people in the community, including those from minority and hard-to-reach groups (such as young people of migrant background, Traveller and Roma communities)”. 

Strategy ‘quite weak in the context of Travellers’

Pavee Point’s Doyle said it was “frustrating” that the Youth Justice Strategy was “quite weak in the context of Travellers” as it did not include any initiatives targeted specifically at Travellers.  

She said that the organisation spent time on a detailed submission that called for targeted initiatives and said there is “nothing specific” in the strategy “for young Travellers, to address reoffending”. 

In prisons, she said there are Traveller liaison officers and other Traveller-targeted initiatives but this is not happening in youth detention. 

“It’s seen as a one-size-fits-all,” she said, and added that Travellers often do not engage with mainstream services and programmes due to a lack of trust.  

“There are community programmes and youth services and garda youth diversion projects but within those there needs to be Traveller specific initiatives.”

Collins said Pavee Point does not want to see a segregation of services, but he said Traveller-specific initiatives should be put in place to act as “a bridge into mainstream services”. He said this would help to address poor engagement with general youth services and programmes. 

When asked why the DOJ did not include Traveller-specific actions, a spokesperson told Noteworthy that there is a specific action within the strategy “to ensure that the existing network of  Youth Diversion Projects reach all relevant young people in the community”. They added: 

There is a specific focus on minority and hard-to-reach groups including those from the Traveller Community.

The spokesperson said that “as part of a public consultation process, a number of submissions from individuals and groups, including from representatives of the Traveller Community, were received” which shaped its content. 

The team also asked if the DOJ has plans for any Traveller-specific youth justice programmes. The spokesperson said that “the immediate priority within the Strategy is the enhancement of engagement with children and young people who are most at risk of involvement in criminal activity, principally through strengthening the services available through the existing network of 105 Youth Diversion Projects.”

Youth Diversion Projects received an extra €6.7m in Budget 2022. The DOJ stated that these services will be enhanced to provide early intervention and engagement with more challenging children and young people as well as other supports. 

Pavee Point is one of the organisations to be invited to attend the Youth Justice Advisory Group, which according to one of the DOJ emails Noteworthy received through FOI “makes up part of the oversight structures” for the new strategy. The email stated:  

“The Advisory Group will include a range of state, community and expert stakeholders similar to the steering Group which has informed the development of the Strategy.” 

Other groups that the DOJ included in their list in this email were the Children’s Rights Alliance, Irish Penal Reform Trust, National Disability Authority and a representative from the Drugs Task Force.  

Doyle welcomed the fact that Pavee Point had been invited onto this group, as she is hopeful that they can lobby for some of the initiatives they suggested in their submission. However the lack of commitments in the strategy to Traveller-targeted programmes mean they will be “competing with other groups” within the wider ‘migrant and hard to reach’ group cited in the strategy. 

“It doesn’t mean these things won’t be brought in under other actions but it does dilute Traveller actions.” 

Noteworthy would like to take an in-depth look at the experience of Travellers in the wider justice system as part of our  BLIND JUSTICE project – currently over 70% funded. Find out how you can  help get it over the line >>

This article is part of our  TOUGH START  investigation which is being led  by  Maria Delaney  of Noteworthy and  Michelle Hennessy  of The Journal. 

This Noteworthy investigation was done in collaboration with The Journal. It was funded by you, our readers, with support from The Journal as well as the Noteworthy  general fund  to cover additional costs.  

You can support our work by submitting  an idea , funding for a particular  proposal  or setting up a monthly contribution to our general investigative fund  HERE>>

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Who are the Irish Travellers in the US?

They're one of ireland's oldest and most marginalized minorities but who are the irish travellers in the us.

One of Ireland's oldest and most marginalized minorities but how much to do you know about Irish Travellers in America?

In Ireland, nearly everybody is aware of the existence of the Irish Travellers  — they’re one of Ireland’s oldest and most marginalized minority groups, known for their itinerant lifestyle, distinct dialects and oft-questioned traditions.

However, many people know that there are also communities of Irish Travellers in America.

A few times each year, a headline will pop up about Irish Travellers in the US. Sometimes it’ll be from a local newspaper in South Carolina or Texas; on rarer occasions, such as the bust of a high-profile rhinoceros horn smuggling ring, it’ll be in Bloomberg Businessweek . Except for the occasional story expressing interest in the culture or history of the Travellers, the articles are typically from the crime section — detailing a theft or scam, or local concern that the Travellers have arrived in the area.

But if you don’t happen to live in those areas or catch those headlines, and if you missed out on that one famous episode of "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding," you’d be easily forgiven for not having any idea that the Irish Travellers have lived in the US for generations. They’re not recognized as a distinct ethnic group by the US Census, and, what’s more, Irish Americans  have never claimed them under the umbrella of the Irish diaspora.

What little we do know about the Irish Travellers here in America comes from those very news articles, and from a scant number of books and documentaries.

There are believed to be anywhere from 7,000 to 40,000 Irish Travellers in the US, though most estimates lie closer to the 10,000 mark. The Travellers here descended from groups who left Ireland around the time of the Great Hunger and settled in the US, carving out a similar lifestyle to the one they followed in Ireland.

Like their counterparts in Ireland, Irish Travellers in the US speak their own dialects of Cant, Shelta, or Gammon, which can include elements of Irish, Gaelic, English, Greek, and Hebrew.

Also similar to their Ireland-based counterparts, the American Irish Travellers identify as strictly  Catholic  and adhere to their own traditions and mores. The men travel and work and the women raise the children. Many of the women are promised to their future husbands in arranged marriages when they are very young.

Their primary trade is repair work, often categorized as dubious in nature (though the fairness of that generalization has been called into question). But the US Irish Travellers have also, over the years, amassed fortunes through a unique internal economy based on life insurance policies.

As Paul Connolly, who made a documentary about Irish Travellers in the US for the Irish channel TV3 in 2013, told The Journal : “Most of the income comes from insurance. . . In America, there’s a clause which allows you to insure anyone with a blood connection — and as they have intermarried for generations, there’s a likelihood there will be a blood connection.

"So they’ve worked out a way of profiting from this, and that, according to the Travellers I’ve spoken to, is how they make their money and how they’re so wealthy. Some of the more morbid characters we came across referred to it as ‘Death Watch’.”

Perhaps the most notorious instance of this system gone awry took place in 2015, when Anita Fox, a 69-year-old Irish Traveller woman in Texas, was found stabbed to death. Police later identified the perpetrators as Gerard and Bernard Gorman, who held a $1 million life insurance policy in Fox’s name.

There are Irish Traveller enclaves in Texas, in the Houston and Fort Worth areas, as well as in South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, with smaller settlements found in rural New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Many of the groups identify based on where in the US their ancestors first based themselves, such as the Ohio Travellers, Georgia Travellers, Texas Travellers, and Mississippi Travellers.

The largest-known Irish Traveller community in the US is in Murphy Village, South Carolina, which, as noted in a report by the Florida Ancient Order of Hibernians, is home to approximately 1,500 people with only 11 different surnames.

According to a 2002 article in the Washington Post , “The Irish Travelers who settled in the United States in the 19th century migrated to different parts of the country and established their own clan groups, often with little intermingling across regions.

“The Sherlocks, O'Haras and others settled [in Murphy Village] in the 1960s, on land around a Catholic church whose pastor, the Rev. Joseph Murphy, became the patron and namesake of the growing community just outside the town of North Augusta.”

Far from a caravan or mobile home community, Murphy Village has become home to an increasing number of suburban “McMansions” in recent decades, as the US Irish Travellers build permanent homes, which they use as a base between travels and for holidays. In this regard, its closest Irish counterpart is Rathkeale, Co. Limerick, which was the subject of a New York Times story in 2012 , chronicling the massive homecoming that takes place every Christmas.

“The Riches,” a serial drama about a contemporary Irish Traveller family in the US, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, aired on FX for two seasons, in 2007 and 2008.

H/T Slate , The Journal , The Washington Post , Florida AOH .

* Originally published in Sept 2016.

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Irish Travellers face more deprivation than other people in Britain, data suggests

Travellers are more unhealthy and work less than other segments of society, according to united kingdom census.

About 71,440 people in England and Wales ticked the box for 'Gypsy or Irish Traveller' in the 2021 census. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Young women from the Irish Traveller community in England and Wales are eight times as likely to have no qualifications as other young women, according to official data released by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday.

Overall, Travellers and Gypsies are poorer, less healthy, die younger and are far more economically inactive than other people, according to the figures from the 2021 census in England and Wales, which paint a grim picture of the social conditions endured by Irish Travellers in Britain.

About 71,440 people in England and Wales ticked the box for “Gypsy or Irish Traveller” in the 2021 census, although this is considered an undershoot. Previous British government publications have estimated the population at anywhere up to 300,000 across all of the UK.

The Traveller Movement, which advocates for Gypsies, Roma and Irish Travellers in Britain, suggested the cropped figures are due to a “reluctance to disclose ethnicity due to fear of discrimination and victimisation, literacy or digital literacy barriers, [and] a generalised distrust of the state”.

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The biggest geographic congregations of members of the Traveller community are in the southeast of England, especially around Kent and the edges of London. Other large concentrations of Travellers are in the north of England in Doncaster, Leeds and Bradford, according to the census data.

More than one-fifth of the population live in caravans or mobile homes, according to the responses. A member of the non-Traveller population in England and Wales is four times as likely as a Traveller to own their own home. Meanwhile, Travellers are more than twice as likely to live in social housing.

The Traveller population is younger than other groups in society, with more than 45 per cent aged 25 or younger. But Travellers also have more health problems. One in eight Travellers describe themselves as being in “bad health”, which was more than twice as high as other people. Women Travellers are less healthy than men, according to the census responses.

“The poorer health [of Travellers] cannot be explained by age,” said the ONS.

The data shows that one in eight Traveller women aged in their early 40s do at least 50 hours per week of unpaid care work.

While almost 71 per cent of the total population of England and Wales describe themselves as employed or self-employed, that falls to 41 per cent for Travellers. The majority are in “elementary jobs” such as cleaning or postal work, skilled trades or work with machinery.

Almost 57 per cent of Travellers in England and Wales have no qualifications, compared to 18 per cent for the wider population. The disparity in qualifications peaks with Traveller women aged in their early 20s.

“There are huge inequalities faced by our communities when it comes to health, education and economic activity as well as an over-representation in the criminal justice system,” said John McCarthy, a trustee of the Traveller Movement. He called for targeted resources to address the issue.

Mark Paul is London Correspondent for The Irish Times

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Islamismus: Wie hoch ist die Terrorgefahr in Deutschland?

Nach anschlag bei moskau : ispk: wie hoch ist die gefahr in deutschland.

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• Am 6. Juli 2023 nehmen Ermittler in Nordrhein-Westfalen sieben Verdächtige fest. Die Männer stammen vor allem aus Tadschikistan und sollen Verbindungen zu Zellen in Frankreich und Dänemark gehabt haben.
• Im November nehmen die Behörden zwei Jugendliche in Nordrhein-Westfalen und Brandenburg fest. Sie sollen einen Weihnachtsmarkt-Anschlag geplant haben, um sich im Anschluss dem ISPK in Afghanistan anzuschließen.
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Sinéad O'Connor's daughter sang her song 'Nothing Compares 2 U' at a tribute concert for her mother. Meet the late singer's 4 kids.

• Sinéad O'Connor died at age 56, her family told the Irish news outlet RTE in July 2023.
• O'Connor had four children: Jake, Roisin, Shane, and Yeshua. 
• Here's everything that you need to know about O'Connor's kids.

The Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor died at age 56 in July 2023, according to a statement from O'Connor's family given to the Irish news outlet RTE. 

"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad," the family's statement read. "Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time."

O'Connor is known for her 1990 cover of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U," which appeared on her second LP, "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got." She was nominated for eight Grammy awards in her career and won the award for best alternative music performance for "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" at the 1991 awards show.

O'Connor also famously tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest against abuse in the Catholic Church during a performance on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992, an act for which she received backlash.

O'Connor is survived by her three living children after her   son Shane died by suicide at age 17 in 2022. Here's everything you need to know about her kids.

Jake Reynolds is O'Connor's eldest child

O'Connor gave birth to her first son, Jake Reynolds, in June 1987, when she was married to John Reynolds. At the time, Today reported , O'Connor was 20 years old, and she gave birth three weeks before her debut album's release. 

In an interview with People in 2021, O'Connor said Jake worked as a chef. She posted in July 2015 that he had welcomed a son, making her a grandmother, the International Business Times reported .

Jake has largely remained out of the public eye, though O'Connor occasionally posted about him on social media.

Roisin Waters is O'Connor's second child

O'Connor gave birth to Roisin, her only daughter, in 1995 with the journalist John Waters, after her marriage to John Reynolds ended. O'Connor and Waters eventually engaged in a custody battle over Roisin, which Waters won in 1999, MTV News reported . The outlet said O'Connor decided to give Waters custody of their daughter following O'Connor's suicide attempt.

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O'Connor told People in 2021 that her daughter had a "great singing voice" but that she was relieved Roisin didn't choose to follow in her mother's footsteps. "I thought they would treat her like they treat me," she said. People reported that Roisin worked as a pastry chef.

Roisin put her singing talents to use, however, at a tribute concert for her mother and the late Irish artist Shane MacGowan at Carnegie Hall in March 2024, Billboard reported. She sang "Nothing Compares 2 U," her mother's most famous track. Fellow artist Amanda Palmer posted a video of Roisin's performance on social media, writing, "I don't think there was a dry eye in the house."

—Amanda Palmer 🎹 (@amandapalmer) March 22, 2024

Shane Lunny was O'Connor's third child, and he died by suicide in 2022

O'Connor gave birth to Shane Lunny in 2004, having him with Donal Lunny, an Irish folk musician. In the 2021 People interview, O'Connor said that Shane was "a real mommy's boy" who wanted to follow in his mother's footsteps with a career in music.

In August 2017, O'Connor posted a video on Facebook saying that she had felt alone since losing custody of Shane and expressed suicidal ideation, The Telegraph reported .

Shane was found dead in January 2022  and O'Connor wrote on Twitter that he had died by suicide. 

"My beautiful son, Nevi'im Nesta Ali Shane O'Connor, the very light of my life, decided to end his earthly struggle today and is now with God," O'Connor tweeted in a since-removed post.

"May he rest in peace and may no one follow his example. My baby. I love you so much. Please be at peace," she said. 

O'Connor posted a tribute to her son days before her death, People reported .

"Been living as an undead night creature since," she wrote in a now-deleted tweet, according to People. "He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul. We were one soul in two halves. He was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally."

O'Connor's youngest child is Yeshua Bonadio

O'Connor had her youngest child, Yeshua, with Frank Bonadio in 2006. O'Connor told People in 2021 that Bonadio was an American scientist, and that Yeshua was interested in attending college in the United States.

O'Connor said that Yeshua was an "incredible musician" who played the piano and had an "incredible singing voice."

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