The recognition of Travellers as an ethnic group would not solve all problems facing Travellers but it would help to counter discrimination, the Equality Authority said yesterday.
Laurence Bond, head of research at the authority, called for a debate on the classification of Travellers as an ethnic group, at an event to mark Traveller Focus Week.
He said the recognition of Travellers as an ethnic group was not "some kind of magic bullet" that would right all wrongs. However, State recognition would bring with it protections under inter-national conventions.
There was a perception in Government that you had to be "foreign" or "racially different" and come from somewhere else to be part of an ethnic group.
"The term they have used is 'we don't believe they are ethnically different' and yet it's very hard to know how that squares with all the recognition in official policy about their different cultural identity. Let's have a debate."
Niall Crowley, chief executive of the Equality Authority, said international agreements and EU legislation did not name specific ethnic groups from particular States. He urged the Government to recognise Travellers as an ethnic group "to ensure Travellers can enjoy the protections and benefits that flow from these agreements".
In 2004 the Government told the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that it did not regard Travellers as a distinct ethnic group.
The UN committee had expressed concern at this, and urged the Government to work more concretely towards recognising the Traveller community as an ethnic group.
The Government later told the UN it recognised the special position of Travellers "in a range of legislative, administrative and institutional provisions", and that it gave explicit protection to Travellers in equality legislation.
Mr Bond said it was "slightly infuriating" that the Government had not defined "ethnicity" so that people would understand why the State recognised Travellers' unique cultural identity but not their ethnicity.
