Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Today, physically and mentally I was not able to chair this meeting. Reading the report when it first came out brought me right back to Carrickmines and brought me back to my childhood. I am now a 31-year-old mother. I can only speak of the experience of the halting site where I was born and reared. That halting site opened in 1967. At the moment, its redevelopment is not even being looked at. I was part of a big project for the redevelopment of the site. Many of the children spoke about playing in the mud. I was that young child, not having a safe place to play. It just goes from generation to generation. Dr. Muldoon rightly said that it will be the first time in history that there will be appropriate and safe accommodation for Traveller children.

While the focus of this report is on one halting site, I would like to thank Anne Burke, Breda O'Donoghue and others in the Traveller Visibility Group Cork for their help and the work they have done with that particular halting site. I also thank Ms Ward and Dr. Muldoon for all the hard work they put into this report.

Reading it again was very tough but its contents were very true. I hope that something will change as a result of this report. Ten people from within our community lost their lives and the local authority was not held accountable, nor was the State. We do not want that in future for our young children going to school. I was that young child going to school in the freezing cold, not having heating in the house. Many Travellers live in caravans and trailers. That is people's choice of home and it is a home. People are looking for facilities.

Two weeks ago, I spoke about Labre Park halting site where there was an outbreak of hepatitis A. Many children ended up in hospital over the Christmas period and throughout January. There was a small outbreak of coronavirus on the site at the same time. How can it be acceptable for children from the Traveller community to get hepatitis A in this day and age and nobody is held to account for that?

One side of it is accommodation and the other side is education. Children are being failed and Travellers, who are adults now, have been failed by the system but there are no consequences for it. Nobody is held to account. Nobody is saying that these children's lives matter. I have a little girl who is 20 months old. She is now in safe appropriate accommodation. I am trying my hardest as a mother with really bad anxiety to get her past the age of two. Every mother in the Traveller community fears their kids being under the age of two because we know there is still a danger of not being able to survive until they are over the age of two.

I could speak all day about the inequality. Even on a Christmas Day people living in trailers come looking for water. None of this is acceptable. I have lived through this. Most importantly, young children today are still living through it, not getting the right access to education. They have the shame of going into school while not having the appropriate uniform and being labelled for that even though it is not their fault or their parents' fault. It is down to the accommodation they are living in and the area surrounding it.

If the witnesses were to name their top three recommendations, what would they be? Who should be held accountable? Would this happen if this were children in the general population? This is why we have child protection. I am also a youth worker. This is why we focus on the rights of the child and child protection. Who should be held responsible for these failures that Travellers have had to live through for decades upon decades?

I stay in Labre Park for three days a week when I am actually feeling good and when I come up. When my nephews, nieces and other children on the site fall, they are automatically brought to Our Lady's Hospital. Their parents are questioned by social workers. The mothers and fathers are terrified that their kids will be taken from them due to injuries and infections that are down to the living conditions at the sites and not getting the proper supports they need from local authorities.

If this were to happen in the general population, who would be held accountable? What would Dr. Muldoon recommend to the committee as the way forward? Does the Ombudsman for Children intend to do any more of these reports? I would support that. The Irish Traveller Movement and Pavee Point, the National Traveller Women's Forum and other local NGOs would support the Ombudsman for Children to carry out more of these reports. I am hoping this one is serious enough that the Government will take some action. Who would be held accountable if it happened to a child in the general population? That is one question the committee needs answered.