Garda Roma intervention wrong-headed

Racism can live at the edges of the application of law, writes Mairead Enright

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Last week, gardai removed two young Roma children from their family homes, took them into temporary care and subjected them to DNA tests so that their lineage could be proven to the satisfaction of the state.

The children are blonde but their parents are not. In recent days such tricks of genetics have become – through the sort of sleight of hand that is only possible when speaking about a racial minority – ...