Ms Evon Brennan:

I am a co-founder of Mixed Race Irish. We are bringing this issue to the committee's attention because we can no longer tolerate a situation where racial suffering continues to be airbrushed from Irish history. It has taken us five decades to talk about our colour-specific suffering. We stand together now as a collective voice, which means that we are no longer isolated in our suffering. We are bringing our past racial suffering into the present to be looked at and learn from it. We want our painful histories to be documented as evidence to show how Ireland dealt with racism in the past and to encourage debate on how it is dealing with racism today. As so many of us share identical stories of abuses endured because of our skin colour, we can say this was the reality for us.

In the first instance, our voices were listened to by Deputy Dominic Hannigan several years ago.

His generosity and willingness to give us time further motivated us to raise our campaign on the horrific suffering endured by mixed race children while in industrial care. Through talking and listening, we opened a can of worms that shocked us as the number of mixed race stories echoed of detrimental racism, inlcuding neglect, starvation, poverty, sexual, physical and verbal abuse owing to the colour of our skin.

How have we overcome our tragic histories? Overcoming one’s history of horrendous colour-specific abuse will take years. Many of us may never recover from these traumas. How do we overcome the inherited belief that our fathers were savages from the jungle and of low intelligence to later discover that they had been students in medicine, law, civil engineering and contributed to Irish society? How do we overcome the shock of this knowledge that was deliberately withheld from us, these deliberate lies, a cover-up, to discredit our innate intelligence and heritage? How do we overcome deep feelings of inadequacy and inferiority?

Personally, I overcame them temporarily, as it takes years of difficult therapeutic work - this avenue is extremely long and painful - by becoming an expert in control, in my music, family life and social isolation to mask the deep sense of hate and worthlessness I felt inside. Deep feelings of inadequacy and lack of belief in my own talents resulted in a loss of my capacity to contribute to society.

Will the committee go beyond what has been presented to it today? What it sees are three individuals who appear intelligent, confident, articulate and self-assured. That is how we have learned to behave to be accepted. We have learned on the surface level, keeping at bay our stunted pasts, capacity for greatness and, especially and fundamentally, inability to endure lasting deep love. These feelings of isolation are a common thread among our community, as is the wealth of physical suffering that flares up. We are here in suffering and any new situation will throw us back into it. Simple questions about where one comes from can invoke flashbacks, throw us into helplessness, confusion with racial identity and deep depression. Our interiors and minds are not functioning as well as those of a cherished loved individual. How we overcome our past will be an ongoing battle and struggle for us owing to the inflicted racism and abuses experienced in our traumatic childhoods. Being here today is the beginning of our recovery. I thank the committee for listening to us.