Irish Travellers Movement

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Irish Traveller Movement submission to the Taskforce on Active Citizenship

The Irish Traveller Movement (ITM) welcomes the opportunity to participate in the debate on Active Citizenship and recognises the importance of contributing to this process. We recognise that it is timely to look at how people in Ireland participate in civil, social and political structures and how the development of measures to increase participation will have benefits for all society, in that “the quality of life in society and the ultimate health of our communities depends on the willingness of people to become involved and active” . For the purpose of the submission, the ITM has not rigidly followed the suggested nineteen questions in the consultation document, but has focused on the areas that we feel warrant more focus on how Active Citizenship can be developed to improve the participation of Travellers and all members of society.

The ITM

The ITM is a national network of organisations and individuals working within the Traveller community. ITM was established in 1990 and now has over eighty Traveller organisations from all parts of Ireland in its membership. The Irish Traveller Movement consists of a partnership between Travellers and settled people committed to seeking full equality for Travellers in Irish society. This partnership is reflected in all of the structures of ITM.
The Irish Traveller Movement was formed to be a national platform, through which Travellers and their organisations are enabled to:

Highlight the issues faced by Travellers and to press for real solutions.

• Debate ideas and formulate and promote culturally appropriate initiatives.
• Provide those active at a local level with support and solidarity.
• Develop alliances at national level.
• Challenge the many forms of individual, structural and institutional racism with which Travellers have to deal.

The strength of the ITM as an organisation comes from its membership, in that the local experiences, needs and issues faced by Travellers are relayed to the ITM from its member organisations all over the country and that it provides a real platform for Travellers from all over the country to come together and lobby for real change for Travellers.


What does Active Citizenship mean?

The ITM understands Active Citizenship to mean more than participating in representative democratic structures (defined as “civic participation” by the Taskforce) or involvement in formal volunteering, but that Active Citizenship also means involvement in participative democracy, namely that people are involved in developing policies that directly affect them. Indeed, at the launch of the Consultation process in Croke Park on September 14th, chair of the Taskforce, Mary Davis, strongly agreed that participative democracy was a core part of Active Citizenship.