Vol. 487 No. 5
27 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if the Government will assist the many Irish in Britain who are homeless, sleeping rough and suffering from alcoholism and psychiatric illness, as detailed in a recent report. [4411/98]
I assume the Deputy is referring to the editorial Mental Health and Ethnicity: An Irish Dimension in the February 1998 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The contents of the editorial are disturbing. In summary, it states that considerable evidence exists that Irish people in England suffer higher mortality rates and higher incidences of physical and mental ill-health than either English people or any other ethnic group.
In June, 1996 the British Medical Journal published the findings of a study on Patterns of Mortality in second generation Irish living in England and Wales, the results of which also were a cause for concern. In light of that study a Government grant of £10,000 from the Vote for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment was given at the end of 1996 in support of research into health issues affecting middle-aged Irish men in Britain being carried out by the Federation of Irish Societies in Britain and Middlesex University. The Dion Committee, through which Government grant assistance — £613,000 in 1998 — is given annually to Irish immigrant welfare organisations in Britain, is monitoring the progress of that project and will also look at the need for further research into health issues affecting the Irish communitiy in Britain in the context of applications for grant assistance in the current year.
Issues affecting Irish emigrants are monitored by an interdepartmental committee chaired by the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Departments and Government agencies with responsibility for matters relating to emigrants and emigration are represented on the committee. I have asked the committee to consider the issues raised by the study published in 1996 and by this latest study.
