Ms Carole Brennan:

This is a huge question. In our submission paper we have outlined some of the things we want for our members. The first thing is recognition. If a person's dog is killed, they must grieve for it, but before grieving they must acknowledge the dog has died. I am just using that as an analogy. It goes back to that question of years of internalisation of racism.

I want to share this with the committee. For me, admitting that I was targeted because of the colour of my skin is something that I refused to do for years. I did not want to say that the reason that nun or priest did that to me, or the reason that happened to me in the street or whatever, was the colour of my skin. It is too painful. If one asks anybody who has been subjected to racism, they will often want to deny that it was because of their colour. Some people will try to say everything that happens to them is because of their colour, but in our cases and particularly in my case, it was the other way around. I did not want to acknowledge that I was different.

One grows up thinking one is the same as everybody else and then one walks down the street with the nuns and people come up asking "Where are these children from?" I remember that question being put to me by Americans when I was very young. It was quite a traumatising experience. I was very rude to them. I told them to go away and stop annoying me because there was no reason for them to ask where I was from when it was obvious that I was Irish. I was very proud of being Irish at that age. I loved Irish history, I wanted to speak Gaelic and everything. What did that nun do? She whacked me across the head and sent me back to the dormitory to sit on my bed and think about my behaviour. I sat there, thinking "I just stood up for my Irishness and this is what I'm getting".

This is about acknowledgment. If someone had explained to us the simple fact "You have two heritages, you have an Irish mother and an African father", and explained very simply some of those issues, even today in a taxi or wherever I go in Ireland if someone asked me where I am from, it would be fine, because I would have a place to put that. If no one explains it, every time one hears that question one remembers those Americans and being smacked across the face because one stood up. That is key. We cannot blame anyone for asking us where we are from because we do not look Irish, to be honest. That is not the point. If one knows one's identity and knows who one is, it means that when the question is asked, one is able to deal with it. Today in the hotel someone asked us the question. We both looked at each other wondering what to say because that goes back to that original trauma when the question is asked, because that nun beat me and told me whatever. It sounds like a superficial thing to say, but it is actually very deep, this idea of identity. The experience of not knowing where one comes from or what one stands for or who one is, based on skin colour, because no one has explained anything, persists for the whole of one's life. I have spoken to other mixed-race Irish who have said that when that question is asked they want to lash out and hit someone. They think, "Why are you asking me that stupid question?"

Coming back to the question about what we want, we want recognition. That must be the first thing. We need the recognition and this is part of that process. We are here today. We want to thank the committee. We do not take this for granted. We do not think we are owed anything in that sense. We want to thank the committee for the opportunity to come and talk about this because we have not talked about it ourselves for years, we have just hid it. Rosemary mentioned the CERD. This is also part of it because racism is ongoing in Ireland.

Racism is ongoing in Ireland. We heard the story of a boy who was cyberbullied because, his mother believes, he was mixed race, and who committed suicide. We can raise awareness of what happened to us - for example, by coming here today. Our experience has the potential to have an impact on what is happening today in Ireland. I ask the Government to ratify whatever treaties are outstanding and to look at those issues so that people are protected if ongoing racism is taking place. People do not know where to go if they are experiencing racism. There is a perception that the police may not take it seriously because there is nothing in the legislation that protects people from racism. We were not protected. We would like to think that even though we are talking about our experiences in the past, they will have a wider impact.

Acknowledgement and recognition are needed from the Government. We are completely self-funding. We have been together for over two and a half years and we have received no funding at all. We want to continue tracing other mixed-race Irish. There are quite a lot of people out there who we know are isolated and have not come forward. We want to find a way of reaching out and getting access to those people who are isolated. One of our mixed-race friends was found dead in the River Liffey. She was 22 years of age and is now buried in an unmarked grave in Glasnevin Cemetery. She grew up with us. Her name was Pauline and she was a beautiful girl. She was unloved, unwanted and made to feel unwelcome and ended up dead in the Liffey. She is a symbol to us. We would ask the committee to investigate how we could potentially-----