I thank the Minister for taking this matter this afternoon. Last year I argued for a training centre to be set up in Rathkeale and this has been half achieved. The Riverside Training Centre has moved from Newcastlewest to Rathkeale. That, in many ways, was the easy part of the task.
The main difficulty now lies in the fact that the Riverside centre was only a 12 person centre and the need and the demand is much greater. Currently 17 young people are enrolled, with a waiting list of 20. A full senior training centre is required to cater not only for the young traveller children, but also to provide a resource centre for all travellers in the area. Rathkeale is unique in Ireland in that 25 per cent of the entire population of the town is made up of the travelling community. In winter this can increase to close to 50 per cent if they all decide to come home, especially at Christmas and for other events. The number fluctuates, but it goes between 25 per cent and 50 per cent.
Doubt has been expressed as to the viability of the training workshop, so those involved have gone to the trouble of acquiring from the local primary schools the number of young boys and girls from the travelling community attending schools in the locality. Given that traditionally the birthrate among travellers is higher than the national average, the large number of local weddings and rumours that cutbacks and stricter enforcement of laws in Germany means that a good number of Rathkeale travellers are coming home from Germany — they were making quite a lucrative living there tarmacadaming everything in sight — these figures are much more likely to increase than to decrease.
There are currently 80 boys and 90 girls between the ages of five and 15 years in Rathkeale. Some 87 girls are attending St. Anne's national school, that is the convent school. Some 21 boys are attending the boys national school and 15 are attending a junior training centre. Local sources have told me that between 1990 and 1995 about 30 new families formed in the area. The figures I have given take account of children between the ages of five and 15 years, but the growing number of children under five years was not included. To the numbers in Rathkeale can be added 74 children from the travelling community in Newcastlewest, approximately nine miles from Rathkeale, and 42 in Askeaton, about eight miles away. If the Minister adds all those together she will get something like 286 traveller children between the ages of five and 15, giving an annual average of 28.
If only half of these were available or opted for this form of training or education, it would be sufficient to ensure the viability of the centre for at least ten years, given that most of the trainees look for a two year programme. To date no request for an extension to the two years has been refused. It has been the policy of the centre to accept trainees from the settled community. Anybody who feels the centre has a role to play in their lives is taken in, so there is quite a mix. I visited the centre on Monday and there is quite a mix of settled and traveller children there.
It is obvious that a 12 place centre is too small for the needs of this community. The advantages of a 24 place centre are enormous in terms of the services this centre provides, not only for the children but for the entire community. At the moment the administration is carried out by one of the instructors. Upgrading the training centre to a senior training centre would enable a full time administrator to be taken on. This would enable him or her to set up a liaison with the other second level institutions in the town — everybody in Rathkeale thanks the Minister for the new secondary school — and could also ensure that there is more effective job placement and that greater encouragement could be given to the travellers to promote self employment among the trainees, as that is the natural bent of most of the travellers from that area. They are very industrious and entrepreneurial and they just need to be encouraged.
A fully staffed and equipped centre would become a focal point for the delivery of a range of services to the travelling community. At the moment the premises which houses the centre also provides an office for a community worker, who has set up a homework club for the younger traveller children and is providing adult literacy and numeracy classes and other adult learning facilities, especially for the traveller women. The centre can play a very important role in this community. If the travellers have a place they can call their own, they can invite in members of the settled community and it can help forge a bridge between the two communities. Its role in adult education and health promotion has only just started. More needs to be done, so I ask the Minister to take these arguments on board. I know that an answer may not be forthcoming this evening, but I ask her to take these arguments back to the Department. I ask that this proposal be looked at and that a favourable outcome be granted.
