Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I missed the early part of the contributions because I was in the Dáil Chamber for Question Time. I may have to go back again later so please excuse me if I have to leave before the meeting is over. I welcome the contributions of the witnesses. It is good to have them here.

I will very much focus on the point that Deputy Conway-Walsh made about the hard-to-reach communities. A lot of us attend events and it is the same people who are at the events in a lot of instances. It is not the fault of those people who are active and want to help, but I often think of the people who are not there. I know from my own constituency of Cavan-Monaghan there are groups who travel to the North and also groups that come South on a constant basis, but it is the same group of people from the South travelling North and from the North travelling South. There is a huge cohort of people we are not reaching. We must address that issue.

At the start of Covid I remember the community sections within our local authorities drew up lists of people who needed to be contacted on a daily basis. These were people living on their own in isolated areas. From being involved in some of the groups I know the day services that are prevalent in practically every rural parish and in smaller towns as well were able to provide the list of people who attended their weekly services but they did not have contact information for the people who did not attend, who were often the people who needed support and contact.