Ms Deirdre O'Reilly:

It is one of the ways in which primary healthcare programmes have been developed. We have a mental health primary healthcare worker in Kerry. It is still true, sadly, that members of the Traveller community do not reach the same age as my father did of 87. The death rate is shocking. In the Kerry project, they have started a small project with one community healthcare worker who is a woman. She is doing community health in a slightly different way. She visits the other people who deem themselves to be the older members of their community. They share information and do many kinds of different things that might have happened in the club in the past. Apparently, this has been quite successful for encouraging people who are not well to go to hospital.

Two male primary healthcare workers also work specifically with national organisations such as Pavee Point looking at the issues facing men’s health, how best to respond to that and to support Traveller men.