The Minister of State for Justice at the Department of Justice and Equality, David Stanton TD, with special responsibility for Equality, Immigration and Integration, today attended the Traveller Pride Awards which were held in Dublin today.
The Traveller Pride Awards ceremony is the lead event for the annual Traveller Pride Week programme which is a showcase for all that is positive about the Traveller community in Ireland. Prizes were awarded in a wide range of categories including youth, community action, education, music, the arts and sport.
Alongside last year’s overall winner, Mr Hugh Friel, the Minister of State presented the overall award for 2016 to Mikey Kelly. Mikey is a 12 year old world champion handball player. The Minister of State congratulated Mikey on this huge achievement and said that Ireland was proud of him.
The Minister of State congratulated all of the winners and thanked their families and communities for the support they provide to enable such positive energy and commitment to come forth.
The recently appointed Minister of State said that he looked forward to working with the Traveller community to address a number of issues of concern to them. Referring to the long-standing campaign for Travellers to be recognised as an ethnic group, he called on Travellers and their organisations to focus now on reaching out to the wider Irish society to explain the case for recognition and to win support for this step.
ENDS
Note to Editors
Mr David Stanton TD, Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality with special responsibility for Equality, Immigration and Integration is now leading a three phase consultation process with a view to putting a new National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy (NTRIS) in place. This Strategy will involve the development and implementation of a range of cross-cutting policy matters in order to address the issues facing the Traveller and Roma communities. It will take a whole-of-Government approach to addressing issues facing the Traveller community, including a sustained intervention to tackle feuding and anti-social behaviour.
Phase 1 of the consultation process focussed on identifying key strategic themes such as cultural identify, accommodation, education, employment, health, anti-discrimination measures and the provision of (and access to) public services. Phase 2 included a round of regional consultation public meetings and focussed on identifying high level objectives under each of the agreed strategic themes. Other avenues by which people/groups could participate during Phase 2 included making formal submissions and/or responding to an online survey. Phase 3 of the strategic drafting process has commenced and a set of specific draft actions has been circulated to all relevant Government Departments for consultation and observations. It is anticipated that the wording of those actions and timescales for their delivery will be finalised shortly. Phase 3 will also involve public consultation meetings at regional level so as to help to ensure buy-in from all relevant stakeholders; those meetings will take place in September 2016. Following Phase 3, the proposed/draft Strategy will be considered by the National Traveller and Roma Strategy Steering Group and then submitted for consideration by Government.
The previous Government decided that the question of recognising Travellers as an ethnic group will be addressed in the context of the new Strategy.