Ensuring Accommodation Equality for Irish Travellers in Northern Ireland: A Socio-Legal Comparative Study (Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands)

Irish Travellers are recognised as an ethnic group in Northern Ireland, yet Traveller-specific accommodation ESRC NINE DTP Postgraduate Studentship Nomination Form 2026-27 / Page 3 of 16 remains under-delivered and often fails to meet minimum regulatory standards (NIHRC 2018; ECNI 2010). Scholarship on equality mainstreaming highlights both its promise for embedding substantive equality within governance and its limitations, particularly where duties become proceduralised and detached from outcomes. This project situates Traveller accommodation within these debates and examines whether Northern Ireland’s statutory equality framework, particularly Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, retains the institutional capacity to deliver substantive equality in accommodation outcomes, or instead tends towards formal compliance with limited practical effect. The research adopts a socio-legal design that treats equality law as institutional practice embedded within governance systems. Drawing on substantive equality theory, particularly Fredman’s four-dimensional framework, and implementation scholarship, it develops an evaluative approach. The study combines doctrinal analysis of Section 75 with documentary analysis across the Traveller accommodation decision chain, including needs assessment, strategy development, planning, funding, delivery and monitoring. Eight to twelve expert interviews explain institutional practice and test interpretations emerging from the documentary record. A comparative element examines how institutional design shapes equality duties. Scotland and the Republic of Ireland serve as near comparators, while the Netherlands is included as a contrast case due to its distinct regulatory history and subsequent rights-based re-framing of caravan site governance. The study provides an original doctoral-level socio-legal comparative analysis, contributing to academic debates on equality mainstreaming, positive duties and substantive equality in resource-constrained governance contexts.