Ms Minnie Connors:

I thank the committee for inviting me to speak here today. Members have already got the social and political submission from our group and now I want to tell them the context of where they came from. I am a 40 year old Traveller woman. I was brought up in a trailer with my parents, five brothers and seven sisters.

They were the happiest days of my life, living out in the open with our horses, dogs, chickens and goats, with all my extended family around me. Back then we lived without water, electricity or toilets. My extended family are now living on the same site I was raised on in four trailers, without water, electricity or toilets. Nothing has changed in a generation. I went to school in Wexford, to the same school that my five children have attended. When I left at the age of 12 I could not read or write. In Youthreach I learned to read and write in a few weeks.

The very same thing has happened to my children. They have been treated as children with special needs from day one. They do not get the same lessons as other children, do not learn Irish, do not get homework, and are told to colour in pictures and play computer games. They stay in at playtime to avoid discrimination. The same level of abuse and bullying is still there. If a child touched off me in school, they would have to touch off somebody else to get rid of the Traveller germ. A generation later, this is what my children experience every day.

When I had three children I was living happily in a caravan on the family site when council officials told me that if we did not leave, they would impound our caravan and I would have to go to a women's refuge with my three children, and my husband Jim would have to go into a men's hostel. Finding a landlord to rent to a Traveller family is near to impossible. The council offered the alternative of going into a council house, in a group housing scheme of ten houses built especially for Traveller families. All of the other Traveller families have been replaced by settled families and my family and I are now isolated on that scheme away from our own community.

We accept that there are many things we need to change in our community and in our culture. For example, we want to give Traveller children the best chance in life. Yet there are priests in this country who charge €1,000 to €2,000 to perform fake marriages on underage Traveller girls and boys, taking advantage of our anxiety about protecting our culture.

I have had breast cancer. My GP did not examine me when I presented with a lump. He gave me antibiotics. I have to see five different doctors before I could get a mammogram. The cancer was then discovered. I still have to have the support of settled friends to get doctors to treat me properly as a person. I am one of the 83% unemployed people in the Traveller community claiming social welfare. When I attended a social welfare appointment recently, the officer tried to get me to sign a document I had not read. It was a contract with Tús Nua to do a course I had already completed the previous year. When I asked for time to read it I was accused of pulling the Traveller card. If I did not sign, I was told that an old signature of mine will be put on it. When I said I had had the opportunity to do a counselling course to assist members of the Traveller communities suffering with mental health issues, the official told me that Travellers do not want to work, they just want welfare. It is soul-destroying to be treated in such a disrespectful way by a person in a Government Department.

The committee is hearing from me today because my beautiful sister Alice took her own life last year. She was 24 years of age. She was the ninth suicide in my family in the last 30 years. Suicide in the Traveller community is seven to ten times higher than in the settled community. In spite of this Governments do nothing to deal with the crisis.

There was no help for Alice when her crisis arose. We were told half an hour before she died that because it was a Saturday, she would have to wait to Monday to see her own family doctor. She had already seen her doctor two days before but to no avail. There is still no support or help for shocked traumatised families. The school advised me to act normal although both my children had been in the house that morning when Alice was found dead.

Healthcare professionals do not understand Traveller culture. One counsellor I attended told me that she had never counselled a Traveller before and would need training to work with them. We all need culturally-appropriate mental health services. Our entire way of life is being stripped from us and we are still held in contempt by the settled community.

Travellers have a fear of organisations like Tusla. After my sister's death I went to see the Traveller mental health co-ordinator. Her response was to report to Tusla that my family are living on a site without basic amenities. This filled us with fear that the children would be taken into care. This has been the experience of many Traveller families in the past.

As an example of Traveller culture, horses hold special meaning for us but we are hounded for owning them. Last week my brother's horse was legally grazing in a field when it was cut from its ropes and taken. Two days later he traced it to the pound in Cork. He proved he was the legal owner but was then told that the horse had died during the night at the pound, even though a vet had reported the horse to be in good health on arrival at the pound the previous day.

Traveller life in Ireland is a constant daily struggle to be treated with respect and dignity like everybody else. It takes every ounce of our strength every day to battle against the feelings of shame and worthlessness that are heaped on us wherever we go.

Recently I attended a party held for Syrian refugees hosted by the local council. It was so nice to see them welcomed and their culture being respected. I could feel the hurt and disrespect that I had felt throughout my life. Why can this same respect not be there for me and for my people?