National Women’s Council backs call for Traveller Agency

We were delighted with the support from NWCI members in agreeing to lobby the Government to establish an independent Traveller Agency to drive and monitor the implementation of Traveller policy in accommodation and other key areas at its recent AGM.

As women often bear responsibility for the home – overcrowding, substandard accommodation conditions and evictions have a specific effect on Traveller women.  They are exposed to further risks in terms of health, safety, homelessness and participation in education and employment.  As it is, there are no legal sanctions or monitoring mechanisms in place in regard to achieving equality for Traveller women and local authorities continue to fail to ensure the right to a home.

We believe that a Traveller Agency needs to address more than accommodation in order to ensure the full participation of Traveller and Traveller women in Irish society.  This motion was one of two motions we brought forward with the support of the Galway Traveller Movement.

We were also successful in our call for the NWCI to explicitly include Roma women in all aspects of its goals, priorities, actions and communications.   This approach, we feel, reflects the national and European policy framework of Traveller inclusion which is inclusive of Roma.  It also adds to the representation of the diversity of women across decision making structures at all levels.  

Pavee Point was happy to second a motion from Community Work Ireland calling on the NWCI to analyse, highlight and address – from a gender perspective – the impact of procurement and competitive tendering for community based programmes.

Concerns regarding the Government move towards ‘competitive tendering’ away from a ‘grant giving’ approach for social inclusion and equality programmes is causing concern that the real needs of communities are not being met. 

We were also delighted that the AGM saw the re-election of Rosaleen McDonagh to its board. Rosaleen will continue to bring a focus on the need to include minority groups within the women’s movement and specifically the work of NWCI.  We would also like to congratulate Frances Byrne on her election as chairperson of the board.