Draft plan considers recognising Travellers as ethnic group

A new National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy should be signed off by the end of the year, a consultation meeting was told on Monday.

The Dublin meeting of the strategy consultation, held at the Department of Justice and Equality, was told feedback from meetings around the country and from submissions, would be collated and a revised strategy brought to the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy steering group and the Minister of State for Equality David Stanton.

“The Minister of State will then bring it to Cabinet, with a view to having the strategy published and signed off by the end of the year,” Deaglán Ó Briain, principal officer at the department told the group.

More than 80 people were in attendance at the consultation meeting on Monday, including representatives from Pavee Point, the Irish Traveller Movement, the National Traveller Women's Forum, Roma cultural and advocacy project Musicantia, local authorities, the Health Service Executive and Tusla.

They were presented with extracts from the draft strategy and were asked to comment on actions to be taken, suggested in the draft.

Themes examined, in round table discussions, included health and public services, education, gender equality, accommodation and cultural identity.

Under cultural identity, the draft strategy said “the issue of recognition of Travellers as an ethnic group is being considered in the context of development of this inclusion strategy”.

Under education, it said the Department of Education, with the Department of Children, and Tusla, would develop “pro-active, early intervention education welfare supports” to promote and aid Traveller and Roma participation in education.

Under accommodation, the draft strategy said the Department of Housing will “ring-fence the budget for Traveller accommodation and put robust mechanisms in place to monitor expenditure and delivery”.

Two such meetings have already taken place in Sligo and Athlone and a fourth meeting will be held in Limerick, at the Castletroy Park Hotel, on Tuesday.

The closing date for submissions to the strategy is September 30th. The new strategy will cover 2016-2020.