Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

At the Aontú Ard-Fheis in recent weeks, a motion was passed calling for a State apology for the Travelling community and for the systematic way in which governments discriminated against it. Basically, this country told Travelling people that they could only be accepted and included in society if they ceased being Travellers. Governments did this by way of legislation such as the Roads Acts and the Housing Acts, as well as the Commission on Itinerancy and so on. It was a blatant attempt to clamp down on an ethnic minority in our country and to make their way of life impossible for them. The State has never apologised for this. Too often in my role as a politician, I experience situations where I am talking to people and they whisper to me that they are a Traveller. The reason they whisper is because they are too ashamed to say it out loud. I know of a married person whose spouse did not know they were a Traveller when they got married. It is heartbreaking to see, not to mention the demise of much of the Traveller culture such as the Cant language. Will the Taoiseach issue a State apology to the Travelling community for the dehumanising way in which Governments have treated them and the long-lasting effect this has had on this ethnic minority in the decades since?

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