Coventry Irish Centre support
Deputy Daly asked that the new diaspora strategy include support for the Coventry Irish Centre and its work with survivors and older Irish people. The Tánaiste praised its work and said he would ask the embassy in London to see how it could be helped.
I wish the former Minister, Deputy Donohoe, all the best.
The Government is developing a new diaspora strategy. The Coventry Irish Centre has been supporting Irish immigrants since 1953 and it continues to do that in welfare, health, befriending and helping people with passports. It has supported 500 survivors of residential institutions since the 1990s. However, it has no permanent home and has had to move five times since 2015. In the new strategy I ask the Tánaiste to include a provision whereby all of the great work the centre is doing with survivors, and sometimes with the elderly Irish community in Coventry and all of the west Midlands, can be supported so it can have a permanent home.
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. While I do not believe I have had the pleasure of meeting with the Coventry centre, I have had the pleasure to meet with many centres working in the UK. I share his view that they are doing incredible work. I visited one in Camden Town in London relatively recently and I am aware of the work it is doing with survivors of residential abuse and mother and baby homes. It is incredible work. I will ask, in the context of drawing up the new strategy, our embassy in London to see what we can do to assist, and I will come back to the Deputy.