Ms Martina Queally:

With regard to Travellers and asylum seekers, these are just some of a number of sub-groups within the population the public health nurses serve well. The issue with regard to these sub-groups relates to quality of service and outcomes. Some specialist programmes have been put in place to ensure Travellers, asylum seekers and others can access the services in the same way as does the mainstream population. There is also significant peer-led education to get across the difficulty of any cultural boundaries there might be. This is an important area for development because we do not want to see the statistics improve for the services but for the gap between the mainstream population and these sub-groups to widen. In this regard, Mr. Hennessy referred earlier to looking at resources and how they are deployed and taking some of the social indicators into consideration in terms of deployment.

Senator Byrne asked what the solution was to the question of obesity. I believe we must develop a multiple strategy that is multisectoral. The new Healthy Ireland strategy indicates that the responsibility for some health promotion activities must be shouldered by the health sector, but other sectors must also show a much greater interest in this area. Ireland is probably good in regard to doing this because as a smaller country it is easier to build relationships between sectors. The issue is not just related to one sector. It is about public policy, the choices available in terms of food and the education and health sectors working together. Our farming community and public policy on pricing are also factors.