Supporting Irish traveller entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT

Irish Travellers are a minority ethnic group, indigenous to the island of Ireland. Despite the recent historic ethnic recognition by our Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, Traveller participation in the labour market remains exceptionally low, with an overall unemployment rate of 84.3% reported in Census 2011. This article outlines some of the key barriers to Traveller labour market participation and argues that Traveller experiences of the labour market are rooted in and have been shaped by a legacy of racism and discrimination on individual, institutional and structural levels. It argues for a rapid policy response by the State and the development of long-term sustainable strategies to improve Traveller training and employment opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Travellers
• discrimination
• Ireland
• indigenous
• entrepreneurship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Martin Collins has been a Traveller activist for over 30 years and is a founding member of Pavee Point Travellers Centre, of which he is now Co-Director. He has represented Pavee Point and Irish Travellers both nationally and internationally and is presently the Irish delegate to the European Roma Traveller Forum in Strasbourg. He represented Pavee Point on the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) from 2001 to 2007. He also represented PP on the Task Force Report on the Travelling Community which was published in 1995 and it is generally regarded as a milestone in offering an innovative analysis on traveller issues and how they might be addressed. He also has extensive experience in providing anti-racism/intercultural training for both the statutory and voluntary sectors.

Notes

1 Namely the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015 and the Equal Status Acts 2000–2015.

2 The AITHS is the most comprehensive analysis of Traveller health undertaken in Ireland to date, with an unprecedented 80% response rate from Travellers on the island of Ireland (AITHS Team, 2010, p. 32).

3 This strategy is Ireland’s Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies (NRIS) and will function as the Government’s main policy tool for ensuring and promoting Traveller and Roma inclusion in Ireland.