Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There has been a huge amount of outreach around dementia, so we have dementia-friendly communities. A huge amount of work has been done with libraries so the signs of dementia are recognised. It is one area where there has been a reach out to first responders in respect of dementia. I can remember a case I was aware of, where a person in a shop was really disorientated and she started to knock some items off the shelves. She had dementia, she was very confused and did not know where she was. It is really important that this is recognised. The dementia strategy has done a huge amount of work reaching out to the libraries for example. That is one scheme I am very aware of. We are also starting to see dementia-friendly communities happening in the way we see autism communities. It is an area we really need to ramp up as well, and build as much as possible.