Sir, – Jacky Jones (Second Opinion, Health + Family, November 5th) asserts that the Roma families, so heavily featured in the news recently, received better care than their Irish counterparts and that the possible racism involved in these cases in fact served the Roma families well.
Ms Jones uses infamous past Irish cases of child abuse, child neglect and severe physical traumas to demonstrate her point.
Ms Jones should never have attempted to justify her point by using these cases; it could suggest that these Roma children were in some way neglected, abused or manipulated when no such evidence exists. The comparison serves only to denigrate these Roma families and their community.
Ms Jones states that in the cases of the past, Irish parents constantly lied to the gardaí. These Roma families did not. They said, truthfully, that these children were their own. They gave narrative and paper evidence and were disbelieved. They submitted to DNA testing and were proved truthful. There is simply no comparison.
If Irish parents are less suspicious than Roma families and gardaí neglect to interfere on that basis, this is a failing of the State to both.
Racism serves nobody well and Ms Jones in her article alarmingly expressed trust and faith in a system of institutional racism that serves only to damage and degrade. – Yours, etc,
AISLING TWOMEY,
Information
Co-ordinator,
Pavee Point Traveller and
Roma Centre,
North Great Charles Street,
Dublin 1.