Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is right that there are many learnings from Covid. I met a group of women last week - I do not know whether you would call them women's sheds, hen's sheds, sisters' sheds or whatever - to see how we can develop a national organisation similar to the men's sheds, because women do not have such an organisation in place. One lady from Dublin said she lost her mother during Covid and she did not leave the house during that time. She just did not have the ability or the confidence to go outside. Somebody set up the sisters' sheds and invited her to go along. She told me it changed her life. Those are the types of interventions that make a difference, where you can go to a group.

We have learned a lot. Community call, as the Deputy said, was very successful. We need to take learnings as to how we can engage with communities. Local authorities were able to engage much more with communities during Covid. We always find it hard to engage with people who are marginalised and do not know about the services that are in place. It is about how we get in to support them.

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