Martin Collins is a trendy dresser and his hair seems designer cut. He was unshaven (in the manner of Ryan Giggs and Roy Keane) when we met in a southside pub in Dublin on Wednesday morning. He speaks rapidly and articulately, lots of sociological mumbo-jumbo. The only clue to his "ethnicity" (his word) is his pronunciation of "ask" and "asked" ("axe" and "axed").
He works full-time with Pavee Point, which runs leadership-training programmes for Travellers. Recently he has been appointed to the Commission on Human Rights - because of the row over the appointments to that body, along with other recent nominees, he has not yet formally accepted the position.
He was born in Manchester 34 years ago - a large number of Travellers had emigrated to England in the 1950s and early 1960s, as did his father and mother. The family returned to Mullingar when he was a few months old. When he was three they moved to Finglas, where they were housed in "tigeens" for several years. His father worked as a labourer in England and, on returning to Ireland, he sold second-hand furniture and scrap.
Martin Collins spent just six years at school, St Kevin's in Finglas, and regrets not having gone on to secondary and third-level education. His father took him out of school to work collecting scrap and on farms. When he was 18, "by pure accident", he met the late John O'Connell, the former director of Pavee Point, and Ronnie Fay, the current director. They wanted to set up a leadership-training programme, which subsequently became known as Pavee Point Travellers' Centre. He did a six-month training programme.
"My awareness began to develop. I could see things and could make sense of things and I could analyse things that I could never do prior to that. Then I said yes, I'm interested in this and I've been with it ever since."
He is now married with three children and lives in a Traveller group housing scheme on Dunsink Lane, in Finglas. He has become one of the most visible and articulate spokesmen for Travellers. He is certainly loquacious. The interview, which lasted an hour and a half, ran to nearly 13,000 words.
