Dr. Fiona O'Reilly:

I am conscious I have spoken already so I will be quick. I totally agree with the Deputy's point about excellent services. We are not doing the basics. It is not numbers. By that I mean that Safetynet Primary Care provides a much needed health service for Roma families from the back of a van in a car park in this day and age and it is much needed. We do that once every two weeks. Why is it needed? Roma families should have doctors and medical cards and they do not. We are not getting a lot of the basics right. I agree with that point.

We can go as far as we like on cultural competence and we should go very far, but we cannot go anywhere if we cannot speak to people. Our State services do not have the ability to speak to people because they do not have access to interpreting. There is no standard interpreting service for primary care. That was set up overnight in response to the Ukrainian crisis. Now any Ukrainian who comes in to a GP can get a Ukrainian or Russian interpreter on the phone. However, people from Somalia or Uganda are either told, like the girl Dr. O'Dalaigh spoke about, they should find someone to bring with them or the GP will give bad care by using Google Translate. It is dangerous care.

It is not that translators do not exist. There is a brilliant online interpreting service that we use all of the time called LanguageLine Solutions. It is just money. It is just about resources and making that accessible and available. It could be done tomorrow if the will was there.