Colin Murphy: We speak the language of inclusion about Travellers, but inaction speaks louder

Six decades on from the days when NSPCA inspectors could have Traveller children placed in institutions, they are still subject to discrimination, as the Pontins scandal showed last week

Relatives of Angela Collins, who spent 27 years in a Magdalene Laundry, protest for the forgotten victims of institutional abuse. Picture: Gareth Chaney Collins

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission discovered very little information about Travellers in the homes, it stated, “probably because there were very few ‘illegitimate’ births among Travellers".

Yet there were Travellers in those homes, and in other institutions, and one of the reasons they were there was because they were Travellers.

In 1963, Laura Angela Collins's grandmother, Angelina, was camped with her family near Castlemartyr in Cork, when they ran foul of the local “cruelty ...