Vol. 572 No. 4
68 Mr. Wall asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason in its first preparation report on the UN Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Government refuses to recognise the Traveller community as a minority ethnic group and argues that, therefore, racial discrimination cannot extend to Travellers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23357/03]
The UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination defines "racial discrimination" as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin. To suffer from racial discrimination Travellers would need to suffer distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin. The Government's view over the years, and repeated in the draft report under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, has been that Travellers do not constitute a distinct group from the population as a whole in terms of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin. In the preparation of equality legislation, it was considered that discrimination against Travellers would not be covered by the term "discrimination on the ground of race". Therefore, a separate ground – membership of the Traveller Community – on which it is unlawful to discriminate was put into equality legislation. This was not meant to provide a lesser level of protection to Travellers compared to that afforded to members of ethnic minorities. On the contrary, the separate identification of Travellers in equality legislation guarantees that they are explicitly protected.
Some of the pressure to recognise Travellers as an ethnic minority in Ireland arises from a desire for Travellers to be protected by international human rights instruments such as the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, CERD. The Government is committed to applying all the protections afforded to ethnic minorities by the CERD equally to Travellers. For this reason, the Government has included in detail the steps taken to tackle discrimination against Travellers in an appendix to Ireland's draft report under the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. However, the Government is not prepared to include in the report a statement it does not believe to be true, namely that Travellers are ethnically different from the majority of Irish people.
