Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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I thank the Chair and Deputy Ward.

I thank the witnesses. It is lovely to see people in the committee room. Maybe I will start going into the committee room, although it is strange moving from the Covid-19 restrictions to in-person sessions again. I would like to echo the Chair's words. I, too, thank the Samaritans for its hard work over the last year. Ireland has never needed the work that the Samaritans do more than during such a turbulent time. We are all well aware of the crucial supports that the Samaritans give to people.

There are a few aspects of Mr. Mulligan's presentation in which I was very interested. He sent us an excellent document which outlined all of the work that the Samaritans does. There are a couple of areas that I would like, if possible, the witnesses from the Samaritans to expand upon. Maybe they can outline the particular challenges of those aspects, and how we can support them. First, I was interested in the Samaritans' co-operative initiative with ALONE. That is an interesting thing to do, that is, to co-operate with a group that speaks to a particular group in society. Could they expand on that and say whether they have considered taking that model and applying it to different groups? What were the particular challenges in reaching out to older people?