Ms Ronnie Fay:

As a follow up to the point Senator Dolan was making on e-health, it will be really important we quality-proof e-health, because if we do not, people who are already marginalised and may not have technical skills, phones or privacy, can be further marginalised. Part of our ethnic equality monitoring processes requires us to quality proof. That is why we are saying we need stakeholder engagement and Traveller proofing in all of these things. I take on board the complexities. We originally piloted the ethnic issue on the HYPE and then discovered it did not talk to the GPs. We have been there. Initially, when we looked for the ethnicity, we were told there were computer problems, then we were told there were personnel issues. We have a long history of trying. Taking a pragmatic approach and making sure that it benefits a whole range of groups is really important. We are ready, willing and able.

We harnessed the Traveller infrastructure among Traveller organisations but especially Traveller primary health care projects and did our best to mitigate the impact of Covid-19. As Senator Dolan has said, last week, the committee heard examples from Ms Kathleen Sweeney who is co-ordinator down at the Galway Traveller Movement, GTM. The irony is that many of those workers are on minimum wage and barely get 12 hours per week and if they go over a certain point, they lose their medical cards. One of the things we have been asking the State to do is recognise the important role of primary healthcare projects and give all Travellers, given their health inequities, the benefit of a medical card until such time as the health inequities are levelled up.

We do not think that is too big of an ask because given that 80% of Travellers are unemployed, the majority have a medical card anyway. However, for these key people who have the trust of the community and the partnership with the State agencies, there is a real danger we will lose some of them. We also need to look at their terms and conditions in order that they are better remunerated and people who have worked for 20 or 30 years in this really different work should not have to retire with nothing. Their terms and conditions need to be looked at. As I said, we need the Traveller health action plan. There has been no increase in the core funding for Traveller health in terms of the health development money. There has been once-off dormant accounts and that kind of funding since 2008, before austerity. We are seeing the impact of that and we need urgent publication, implementation, budgets indicators, timelines and resources for the implementation of the Traveller health action plan, given that Traveller health is at crisis point and given that has exacerbated the mental health issues that predated Covid-19. I do not know if Mr. Reilly or Ms McDonnell want to add to that.