Mr. Gerard Brophy:

Again, Tusla provides support for family resource centres. We are very much on the ground and a lot of family support is provided. We do depend on other agencies to work with us. In that instance, and it is a good example the Senator gave, where a family might have a particular difficulty, maybe due to a housing situation, which itself may be a conflict with a neighbour, it is just not working out for them or they are too far from school, they cannot get to school or they have an issue with transport, we do depend on, let us say, the local authorities to work with us in that. Sometimes that works, but it is about the network and having it more integrated, and this goes back to the Senator's previous question about having consistent support. When I look back on support for the Travelling community over, let us say, my lifetime in social work, it has certainly increased. We are not yet, however, at a level whereby we can have consistent approaches across all the services together. It is certainly improving but we need to develop more of that. I think our approach to it has been to talk to the Travelling community first and having a really embedded approach with the Travelling community to hear their voices and see what will work for them. I think that is the first step. If other agencies adopted that approach, that would help as well.

The other thing is that we are not dependent necessarily on the Dormant Accounts Fund coming in for that. For example, we had the NTRIS employment support scheme started before the Dormant Accounts Fund came in, so as an agency, we have been committed to that over a period of time and we would see us as retaining that commitment long after the Dormant Accounts Fund. I think that is really important for consistency. The same is true for family support. When we have family support workers there, we find it much more effective with the Travelling community, particularly in some parts of the country, for a woman who has experience in the Travelling community and has lived in the Travelling community to go in and provide that family support. They get a much better reception, they are listened to, and it is actually really positive for other services that we are involved with if we can provide that support, because it is a door into that community. Again, we want to extend those efforts, be more culturally appropriate and have it in a way that is easily received by the Travelling community. It is not something we can solve alone, however. Like a lot of these problems, it does depend on the other agencies coming in alongside us as well.