Dr. Niall Muldoon:

There is a starting point, on which we touched earlier, which is that these people are coming from a fearful background and are mistrustful of the agencies and authorities to start with. They have experienced huge trauma, war, abuse, rape and all sorts of violence as they transport themselves in fear of their lives. All sorts of trauma are affecting them. They come with a distrustful background and then, unfortunately, are met by professionals who may not have been fully trained to be ready to look after them properly. They are putting all of their hopes on the international protection application.

The fear is they will do or say something wrong which will stop them from getting their international protection, which is the sort of security they are looking for and which they have brought their family all the way across the world to find. On the culture of fear, in general the professionals were not there to allay the fears of the people who have come in and work and live in the system. We created a vicious circle in which they come in scared and we do not support them enough to allay those fears and allow them to make complaints and improve the system as a result.