Sir, – As citizens, teachers and teacher educators, we welcome Rosaleen McDonagh’s excellent article (Opinion, September 27th) which gives testimony to Travellers’ experiences of exclusion and the need for their recognition as an ethnic group.
Enabling student teachers to understand and address social justice issues, which impact on the lives of the children and families they will serve, is an important dimension of our work as teacher educators. In that regard, we will draw our students' attention to Ms McDonagh's article, as we will to the large number of negative comments it attracted on irishtimes.com.
These comments merely add weight to her arguments, as there are few other groups in society who are subjected to this level of prejudice, which too often goes unchallenged and unchecked in our media and public discourse.
Strong and proactive opposition to discrimination against members of the Travelling Community is required and we call on the Government, along with political and civic organisations, to show leadership in this regard. – Yours, etc,