Ms Brigid Quirke:

Sorry, that was only one point. I welcome Deputy Ó Cuív's point about more monitoring around the budget. Looking back historically, as Ms Collins has done, the Traveller health advisory committee had a role overseeing the Traveller budget. There was a structure. We monitored the Traveller budget, there was accountability, and we could call the health boards to come before us to explain what had been spent and how they had spent their money. Since that committee was disbanded, we have had no input into the Traveller health budget. That is why we want to bring back the structure.

Senator Coffey has gone but I wish to clarify a couple of things. Ms Collins spoke on the Traveller primary healthcare project. A Traveller heath strategy between 2000 and 2005 was produced by the Traveller health advisory committee. Primary healthcare was seen as an excellent model and was piloted by Pavee Point. That was regarded as a cornerstone which would be rolled out. They rolled out 40 primary healthcare projects, there were eight Traveller health units, a Traveller health advisory committee and we had a Traveller health strategy. We were in a very good place, things were very positive and Travellers were included at all levels. We were told that there were no clear targets in the strategy because we had no data, so we lobbied to be able to collect the data. We were promised that after the data had been produced, we would get a new Traveller health strategy with clear actions from the Department of Health and a defined and protected budget. A study was done in 2010. As Mr. Walsh said, the Department co-funded it with the HSE and the Department of Health in the North, as it was an all-Ireland body.