The first ever national Roma Committee is being set up and the Department of Justice and Equality are inviting Roma to apply to be part of this group.  This is an exciting opportunity for Roma leaders to represent the Roma community at a national level.

The Roma Committee will identify and discuss issues of concern to the Roma community in Ireland and will help implement the new National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy due to be launched later this year.

The Committee will have four Roma men and four Roma women as well as people from different Government departments and agencies.  It is hoped to have Roma from a variety of backgrounds including Romanian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian and others.  It is also hoped the Roma selected will represent a wide variety of locations within Ireland.

The Roma Committee will meet 3 or 4 times a year and the membership of the Committee will be two years.  Travel and costs will be met by the Department for people living outside Dublin.

Two people from the Roma Committee, to be selected by the Roma Committee itself, will represent Roma on the Steering Group of the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy.

The deadline for applications is 16 May 2016.  The first meeting of the Roma committee will take place in Dublin on 01 June 2016.

How to apply

If you are interested in being a member of the Roma Committee, please write an email to Roma@justice.ie. In your application, please include the following:

• state if you are a member of the Roma community

• give the name of your country of origin

• name  the  language(s) that you speak and indicate if you would need help to understand English in order to participate fully at meetings

• name the area where you live in Ireland

• identify  any  expertise or experience which you have which would be useful to the Roma Committee

• name the main issue(s) which you are interested in raising with the Roma Committee