Ms Geraldine McDonnell:

I am sure my colleagues can jump in and join in on this as well. For me, on the ground, living as a Traveller woman and working during the pandemic, there are many issues, as we all know, that Travellers face in relation to their mental health. You are living in severe overcrowded accommodation, trying to work, trying to find space for your children to sit quietly doing their home work and to keep up with their studies, and trying to encourage them to see past the deadlines and into the future of where they need the education and that they need to put in the work. It is almost impossible when you are living in these situations where you are fearful of the virus for yourself and you are fearful for your children. Personally, I have lots of family who are living in one yard. There could be three mobile homes - all separate families living very closely together. It all has a great impact on your mental health.

From personal experience, we would know many Travellers who, if they were accessing mental health services, would look for somewhere out of their local area that they would not be seen by other people to be attending these services but that is not supported by the mental health services. In some of these services, we would push for the ethnic identifier but it would not be a question that would be asked. During the pandemic, I was pregnant. I was having my first baby. There is a maternity hospital that I was attending that was supposed to be asking all of these ethnic questions. They had the training already delivered and the ethnic identifier question was a question that should have been asked. Only for I had the education that I knew this question had to be asked, I had to alert the hospital that I was an Irish Traveller where this question was not asked of me. On my level of care after I had the baby, I had to alert the hospital to the fact that my baby was an Irish Traveller and that it would need a specific different type of care.

That had a great impact on my mental health during the pandemic. I was trying to work, I had my first baby, and I was dealing with everyone else. I was worried, not being able to visit friends and family. I was fearful that I was going to pass the virus on. My family's overall health is already poor. I was fearful that I would potentially cause more harm than good to my family.