Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to Deputy Durkan and the committee for being late. I had a meeting at 8.45 a.m. and I am just back from that.

I wish to raise two issues. I am friendly with someone who was involved with the Traveller community, especially women’s health. The person, at the time, was based in Ballinasloe and she did a number of videos to get across a message on women’s health for members of the Traveller community. Has there been any focus on the whole area of mental health and the way we try to assist people? For example, I could decide to do a ten- or 15-minute talk.

That might not make the connection with the issues people have. However, a professional video conveying a message can be very effective. Has there been any real focus on conveying a message through other ways than meeting or speaking to people? Has that occurred?

On ethnic minorities, for the vast majority of people here in Ireland, if they become unwell or need support they have immediate family. The big problem I see for ethnic minorities is that they do not have an immediate family around them to give them support. While we have a problem now, in 20 years' time we are going to have a huge problem. How do our guests plan for dealing with that real, challenging issue? For example, in the 2002-2008 period, there was a Polish building worker who was working in Ireland and did not have any English. He had a heart bypass in 2008 and ended up living on the streets because he had no immediate family to give him support. It was a huge problem for him as well that he had difficulty speaking English. I am very concerned about the future as regards ethnic minorities like that. They may not be proficient in speaking English and as a result may fall into a huge lapse. How should we deal with that?