Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre welcomes last week’s publication of the ‘Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2026-2030’ by the Department of Social Protection.
The commitment to the development of a successor to the National Traveller Health Action Plan and the extension of the Traveller Brighter Beginnings Initiative is welcomed, as is the commitment to develop a National Traveller Mental Health Action Plan. Recommitments on the full implementation of the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy II 2024-2028 and the Traveller and Roma Education Strategy 2024-2030 are also welcome.
Disappointingly, direct reference to a Traveller and Roma Training, Employment, and Enterprise Plan is absent: a key commitment going back to the 2020 Programme for Government, and with implementation of a developed plan scheduled to commence under the second NTRIS II Action Plan (2027-2028)
The overall ambition of the Roadmap 2026-2030 remains unchanged from its previous iteration: to reduce consistent poverty to 2% by the end of the five year cycle.
Where we welcome the publication of National Equality Data Strategy in March of this year, it is discouraging that the Roadmap does not make any mention of the new strategy or how new equality data can be integrated into the Roadmap over the next five years.
In this, Travellers, Roma and other minority ethnic groups remain absent from indicators and projections in the current Roadmap and are without targets or estimates relative to ‘consistent poverty rates’ or ‘at risk poverty rates.’
We would hope that any mid-term review of the Roadmap might lead to inclusion of disaggregated equality data, and where we will see, before 2030, datasets that can establish clear targets for Travellers, Roma and other marginalised and minority ethnic groups in key mainstream policy initiatives related to poverty and social inclusion.
Read Pavee Point’s submission to the Public Consultation for Roadmap 2026-2030 here: https://www.paveepoint.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Submission-to-the-Department-of-Social-Protection-Roadmap-Social-Inclusion-1.pdf
Read ‘Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2026-2030’: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-social-protection/publications/roadmap-for-social-inclusion-2026-2030/
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Pictured (L-R): Gabi Muntean (Pavee Point Roma Programme); Mary Brigid Collins (Pavee Point Primary Health Care Co-ordinator); Rudolf Simonic (Pavee Point Roma Programme); & Katarina Ivankovic-Knezevic (European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs)