Ms Brigid Quilligan:

In response to Senator Ruane's question, I think it is leadership that is needed. Like my colleagues, I have been living and working with Travellers and putting community development into practice for as long as I have been walking. We have been justifying ourselves for as long as we have been walking. Most people say that their first experience of discrimination was when they started school at four years of age. I was very lucky with my school experience. However, while doing this survey, we met people who experienced discrimination in County Kerry until the 1980s and early 1990s. Lines were drawn in the yard; one was for Travellers and one for non-Travellers. People were taken from their homes and bused into school in the morning, which looks like a very supportive act, but then they showered en masse. They were practically hosed down. They were humiliated. Girls and boys were showered together with their clothes taken off.

I am rambling a bit. What I want to bring the discussion back to is that our community is in a lot of pain. In Irish history there has been an awful lot of covering up people's experiences. Thankfully, in recent years those people have had their experiences acknowledged. Travellers were part of that as well. There needs to be more exploration and acknowledgement of the deep hurt people face. Every day we encounter parents who tell us about their experience with education, sending their children to school and the retention and attainment of children at school. We meet parents who, even as adults, are still deeply traumatised by their own experiences of the education system.

One of my colleagues said something very profound in our office at a consultation in recent weeks on World Suicide Prevention Day. She asked why someone would turn to the person who has hurt them to heal them. We need representation of our community in the different spectrums of society, but first we will do the work on the ground. People are engaged in community development work, education and access to services. That is what we do and we do it very well, but we need leadership from the top if we are to change anything concerning Traveller mental health. We need the State to say there will be zero tolerance for racism against Travellers, for lack of attainment and lack of outcomes for Travellers and for Travellers being treated differently and less favourably in the State. We must have true acknowledgement of Traveller history and Travellers' contribution to this country.

Alongside all of the work that Mr. Reilly and Mr. Joyce spoke very well about in terms of policy work nationally, there needs to be an acknowledgement of the true, deep pain Travellers have gone through. If that trauma is not addressed, it will continue through the generations. It is intergenerational now. The question is how long people can be resistant and resilient. For how long and for how many generations? We are now seeing that even the most resilient people are falling. If it is not alcohol, they are overeating, taking drugs or they are engaged in violence. We are turning on each other and there is conflict and violence. There are so many issues. Education and solidarity require leadership. Sometimes it only requires one person in the school or other setting to make the change. I always tell people to reach out to other people. Whether it is a Traveller or an immigrant, we are all human beings. A child is a child. What has happened for generations in this country is that Travellers have not been seen as human. People are being dehumanised. We face that now. We see that some of our youth have no hope.

When people have no hope and feel as if they do not have opportunities, there is not much left. We are facing a scenario where an entire generation has no hope. We want the members' solidarity but we want it to be meaningful such that it can be transferred into legislation and implemented in policies and action. We do not want to come back here in ten years' time to raise the same issues. If we come back here, we want it to be to report on the success and how all of us together turned around the mental health crisis and suicide epidemic among the Traveller community.