Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I applaud Senator O’Donovan for having spoken about epilepsy. This is national epilepsy week and there are a few things that can change the lives of people with epilepsy. The epilepsy association is calling for free travel for people with epilepsy and for reasonable accommodation during examinations. They appear to be very practical requests. We should be lobbying for the provision of free travel and reasonable accommodation, as well as a few others. I am sure we all got the briefing from the epilepsy council.

I also want to highlight, as Senator Higgins has, the issue of Traveller accommodation and the awful findings of the report this morning. There is something incredibly wrong with the fact that children are living like that in this country. There are children, adults and families - our citizens - living like that. No matter what their background or whoever they are, these are our citizens and they are living like that. There is something innately wrong with how we provide accommodation to people from the Traveller community. It is not working. We must have a different approach to how we accommodate the Traveller community. Travellers have been identified as an individual race. We must change things. We must look outside and talk to the people who live the Traveller life and see how we can best facilitate their backgrounds.