Saoirse Brady

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) highlighted the “persistent over-representation” of Traveller women in detention in a report published yesterday.

Travellers account for 22 per cent of the female prison population while representing only 0.7 per cent of the national population, the report said.

The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) has said it believes the figures may in fact be an underestimation.

“It is unacceptable that at times Traveller women represent one in four women in detention when Irish Travellers make up less than one per cent of the general population,” executive director Saoirse Brady said.

“IPRT is also concerned that these figures are an under-estimation and that there may be even more women in prison who have not disclosed their ethnicity.”

The UN report urges Ireland to “address the root causes of the over-representation of Traveller women in places of deprivation of liberty and expand non-custodial alternatives, ensuring gender-responsive prison services developed in consultation with Traveller and ethnic minority women”.

Ms Brady welcomed the recommendation as “important and necessary”.

Another recommendation on the systematic collection of disaggregated data to help monitor potentially discriminatory practices “could be a game-changer in terms of knowing the underlying issues the State needs to address and how best to do this”, she added.