Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Everyone has spoken about intergenerational trauma. People all come from a different place and the damage is already done. We do not need to have a further conversation on chicken and egg and all the rest of it.

Years ago, an educational psychologist spoke to me about resilience and the particular example they used was that of kids in a very difficult family setting who were put into care and then did the usual thing of kicking back against that. Perhaps those who were providing them with foster care were not up to it or were not fit for it and they kicked them back. It used to be said that people have a certain amount of resilience which after a couple of kicks reduces and then maybe something good happens and it gets up there. I do not have cellophane with me but they use the example of applying cellophane so that when they started pouring it did not matter at that stage; there was an element that you could not be reached with all of that. In the worst-case scenario we have seen families dealing with this for 50, 60 or 70 years. The community is aware of it. Everyone would say the State has failed to address it at particular points. I am just wondering what can be brought to bear for those individuals.