What: Meeting of the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community on Advancing Traveller and Roma Rights - legislative and policy imperatives
When: Thursday, 16th October 2025 at 3.00 p.m.
Where: Committee Room 2, LH2000, Leinster House.
Brief opening speech
Cathaoirleach, members of the Committee, thank you for your invitation to appear before you this afternoon.
Traveller and Roma Communities in Ireland remain two of the most discriminated-against groups in our society. Consequently, the lived experience of Travellers and Roma is persistently at odds with the basic expectations of living in a European country. Substandard accommodation, homelessness, poor health outcomes, poor educational support, poor access to essential services, to justice, are all persistent realities that members face throughout their lives. In a country that prides itself on being progressive and rights based, progression of rights for Travellers remains staggeringly slow.
International Human Rights Reporting - State Obligations and Gaps
Over the past year, Ireland has engaged with several international human rights mechanisms of relevance to Traveller and Roma rights. IHREC has contributed extensively to these processes.
In June 2025, during Ireland's eighth review under the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the CEDAW Committee endorsed IHREC's call for a resourced and integrated National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy (NTRIS II), coordinated with the National Strategy for Women and Girls.
It also called on the State to address systemic issues for Traveller women, such as:
- low educational attainment
- employment barriers; and
- limited access to healthcare.
The Committee issued strong recommendations on access to justice, noting IHREC-supported research that highlighted structural obstacles to legal redress, and the overrepresentation of Traveller women in prisons. The absence of civil legal aid in discrimination cases was specifically criticised. In the July this year, the Government complete its Review of Civil Legal Aid and as it brings forward a proposal for reform, lawmakers, including members, should avail of the opportunity to scrutinise developments in this area.
Similarly, in its February 2025 Opinion, the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on National Minorities (FCNM), reiterated many of our concerns, including the continued lack of legal recognition for Travellers and Roma as national minorities, and the need to repeal laws that criminalise nomadism. The FCNM Committee called for urgent legislative action on accommodation, equality data and hate crime reform. On the latter point, hate directed at Travellers remains a serious issue. We ask the Committee to encourage the Government to progress is commitments in the Programme for Government to modernise the Incitement to Hatred Act.
Ireland was scheduled to submit its sixth national FCNM report by the 1st of September 2025 but at the time of speaking, this deadline has been missed.
Legislative Reform - Equal Access and Repeal of Section 19
Turning to domestic legislation, I draw Member’s attention to two key issues.
Firstly, and most urgently, section 19 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2003 must be repealed.
This provision, which excludes licensed presence from the jurisdiction of the Workplace Relations Commission which deals with all other discrimination cases. IHREC has long highlighted how the unique delegation of these cases to the District Court under this provision undermines access to justice and is out of step with the Race Equality Directive and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
While we welcome reports of its inclusion in the General Scheme of the Equality and Family Leaves (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024, the delay in its progression undermines victim’s rights to an effective remedy and signals a lack of urgency in tackling entrenched discrimination.
Secondly, under the EU Standards Directives, the State is obliged to ensure that equality bodies such as IHREC are accessible and available to all people. Articles 12 and 13 place direct responsibilities on the State to resource and enable this access especially for marginalized groups such as Travellers and Roma. This includes not only physical access but outreach, information dissemination and legal literacy. We urge legislators to scrutinise how these obligations are being fulfilled in practice and to ensure budgetary and operational alignment with EU law.
IHREC's Role and Final Remarks
Over the past eleven years the Commission, through its section 40 legal assistance function, has provided and continues to provide legal assistance to a significant number of Traveller clients.
The biggest cause of complaint for our clients is accommodation. Not only are Travellers denied culturally appropriate accommodation, they are often left living in conditions not fit for human habitation. Our Legal Team has represented Travellers, including disabled people, the elderly, and children, who have all too often been forced to live on or adjacent to landfill sites, without electricity or running water, and with rat infestation. The scale of discrimination faced by them is such that it has become one of our Legal Team's biggest areas of work. We have addressed the systemic discrimination against Travellers not only through private client work, but also through exercise of our Equality Review power, focusing on the drawdown of funds for Traveller-specific accommodation by local authorities.
Finally, I would like to highlight the ongoing work of IHREC's Worker and Employer Advisory Committee (WEAC) in developing a guide for employers on inclusive employment practices for Travellers and Roma, which will be published this November.
Conclusion
As the members will be aware, last week marked the 10th anniversary of the fire at Carrickmines, in which the discriminatory barriers faced by Travellers manifested in the most horrific of tragedies. Ten years on, discrimination against the Traveller Community is as persistent, systemic and wide-ranging.
As legislators and particularly as members of this Committee, I would urge members to press for the prioritisation of the repeal of discriminatory legislation, the alignment of national strategies with binding international standards and to ensure that equality and human rights are delivered in practice.
In the words of Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O'Flaherty:
“We must confront the injustices experienced by Roma and Travellers, the racism and discrimination that we allow to persist on a massive scale. This is one of Europe’s greatest human rights scandals.
[Traveller and Roma] voices are strong and clear, and we must finally listen to them, respect them, and act on their demands for equality and justice. The time for indifference is over.”
IHREC remains ready to support this work and to assist with the Committee, in finally progressing real and meaningful change for one of our most discriminated-against communities.
Thank you