The commission on itinerancy in 1960 stated that there could be no final solution to the problems created by itinerants until they were absorbed into the general community.
It was clear from this that the commission had defined us as a problem, the so-called itinerant problem - a problem that needed to be eliminated. Settlement and assimilation were the means of achieving this.
The commission's flawed analysis provided a framework for action and understanding of Traveller issues which inflicted a lot of damage and hurt on me, my family and the whole Traveller community throughout Ireland.
I accept that those who sat on the commission - all from the settled community - were very sincere and thought they were doing the right thing. However, I would now like those who were involved (and I am sure many are not alive today) to say, "yes, we made a mistake, we were wrong".
In this regard there are some parallels to be drawn from the experience of Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals. Like Travellers, they too were deprived of their culture and language. Like these communities, our very existence is at worst rejected and at best devalued.
Then in the early 1980s we witnessed the emergence of new analysis on the Traveller question. Gone were concepts such as assimilation - and the term itinerant, which was associated with vagrancy and deviancy, was replaced with Traveller. And this was the beginning of a recognition that we Travellers are a distinct cultural group in society.
For me this was a very exciting time and I'm really glad to have been part of it. But it was also quite a daunting time for me. I was 18, with only six years of formal education, my literacy skills were limited and it was difficult for me to understand and make sense of all these new concepts which were alien to me at the time.
I lacked confidence, particularly having to work with settled people who all had access to third-level education and seemed to be very competent at their work.
On reflection, I think this lack of confidence, stemmed from the notion that a group - in my case Travellers - are perceived by society as inferior, abnormal and stupid and if this is a situation you are subjected to over a long period of time you end up believing what society says about you.
This internalised oppression is something you are not even conscious about until it's pointed out to you.
My work is about saying to other Travellers, yes, we are different, but that difference is a positive one and you should not be ashamed of that - we are intelligent people with skills and talents. We can make a valuable contribution to society but we must recognise and address the barriers that prevent us from participating and contributing to society.
I am, of course, talking about the high levels of racism and discrimination experienced by our community. There is no doubt that Traveller organisations have played a significant part in the progress and advances achieved to date, particularly from the 1980s onwards.
Traveller organisations have been recognised as having contributed greatly to a new awareness and understanding of the need to uphold basic human rights and for the need to acknowledge and respect the cultural diversity that exists in this society.
For many years we have stressed that society is not monocultural, there are other groups of people with different cultural, ethnic and religious identities and we must be sensitive to this.
After 16 year of lobbying and campaigning by Traveller organisations we have seen some important changes taking place in light of the new equality agenda. This new equality infrastructure is, in fact, a recognition that we do live in a culturally diverse society. Addressing discrimination and exclusion is the aim of this new equality infrastructure.
It's important to recognise that some positive and progressive achievements have been made. From a Traveller perspective, however, we still have a lot of hard work to do before we are truly valued as equals in society, and to do that means having our cultural identity valued.