EIGHT traveller women have trained as community workers in a pilot described as a model future by the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, Uinsionn Mac Dubhghaill writes.
The women were trained to give other travellers basic information on health entitlements and "create dialogue" between travellers and the health services. As part of this, they carried out a survey of five halting sites in north Dublin which found that 89 per cent of traveller families did not know their health service entitlements.
Slightly more than half of the families surveyed said their inability to read was the main reason.