Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have a short personal story. I happened to be in UHW visiting a family member over the weekend. I met a nurse there whose accent I could not place. I asked her where her accent was from and it was from Somalia. However, it was not really a Somalian accent, or it started as a Somalian accent but it had a good 20 years of Waterford knocked into it as well. Even had I known at the start of the conversation that she was Somalian, I think I would have struggled to place the accent. It was Somalia by way of Barrack Street, I think.

We see positive examples of integration in our communities all across the island. The Minister is moving in this direction through these funding streams but I would say that communities have done an enormous amount of heavy lifting. What we have faced over the last two years has been an unprecedented movement of people, both from Ukraine and other parts of the world. These funding streams are necessary to build the social and human capital across our communities to allow that integration to move forward in the positive way I have seen through my teaching career.

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