A former secretary general of two Government departments, Kevin Bonner, is to be the chairman of the Government's new National Traveller Monitoring and Advisory Committee (NTMAC).
The body will draw its membership from a range of groups including Traveller representatives, the social partners, Government departments and others.
The committee forms part of a commitment in the latest national social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, which undertook to pursue improved outcomes for the Traveller community.
Among the issues to be addressed by the committee are how to help Travellers access employment and the development of increased communications between the Traveller and settled communities.
The inaugural meeting of the committee was attended by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the Minister of State with responsibility for Equality, Frank Fahey, last week.
The establishment of the committee, Mr Fahey said, was an opportunity to address some key underlying issues, including the area of relationships between Travellers and the settled communities.
"The establishment of this committee builds on a number of new initiatives which the Government has introduced," he said.
"The NTMAC provides an important structure at national level to keep the focus of all the social partners on their commitment in Towards 2016 to give concentrated attention to supporting Travellers."
The committee will report every two years on issues of ongoing concern, will have a "cross-cutting" role and focus on addressing issues other than those being addressed in existing departmental committees, according to Mr Fahey.
Three of the principal national Traveller organisations - the National Traveller Women's Forum, the Irish Traveller Movement and Pavee Point - are represented by the community platform, which agreed to sign up to Towards 2016 in 2006. This platform had not signed up to previous national agreements.
Damien Peelo, director of the Irish Traveller Movement, Ronnie Fay, director of Pavee Point, and Cathryn Mannion, director of the National Traveller Women's Forum, are all members of the NTMAC.
Mr Bonner, a career civil servant, was secretary general of the department of labour between 1990 and 1993 and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment from 1993 to 1997.
He has been a member of the National Economic and Social Council, the council of the Economic and Social Research Institute, and the National Competitiveness Council.