Mr. Thomas McCann:

For the Traveller community, there is whole issue of intergenerational and family trauma relating to historical racism, exclusion and oppression, in particular, interventions by the State in assimilation policies and the denial of culture. We are now seeing the impact of the demonisation of Traveller culture and the attempt to eradicate Traveller culture, which has left a deep traumatic scar on the Traveller community. The exclusion and poverty that was created out of that and the hardship experienced by my own family and the wider Traveller community have left a deep traumatic impact on all of us, including myself.

Trauma and the denial and shame that comes from that was internalised by many children who went through the education system and were educated to conceal or get rid of their Traveller identity as well as all the Traveller children that were taken into care. That trauma has contributed to where we are now. The family trauma, alcoholism and drug use all contribute to where we are now. The last thing I will say is that services need to be trauma-informed. All services, including ourselves, need to have trauma-informed services and there is some good training available from Quality Matters and others. We need to look at that because we need to understand how that trauma is expressed in engagement in services.