I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time". I am very pleased to introduce the Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Bill today. The Tánaiste was very anxious that we get the legislation in place. I thank all involved in the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, process who have been working on it for the last year and everyone who was involved in my Department and in the Department of Social Protection. I want to single out Ms Clare Dunne, an assistant secretary general who retired before Christmas. She was instr…

I thank the Deputies for their contributions.

I thank the Members from various parties for their contributions and the issues they raised. This is a short Bill that tries to focus on one category of people who are missing out due to lay-offs during the Covid restrictions and the reckonable service on which they have missed out. I have discussed the matter in the House with various Deputies during the past two years. We said we would have a response ready to deal with this and that is what the legislation before the House is doing. I am conscious that it has gi…

I move: That the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, pursuant to Standing Orders 95(3)( a ) and 181(1).

I thank Deputies Naughten, Ó Cathasaigh and the members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands for their work on this and for bringing forward this motion based on their report. I really appreciate the work they did in gathering material and information from the relevant stakeholders to produce this report. As was outlined, this report builds on the work carried out by the previous Dáil and the previous committee. It is great that work did not go to w…

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this issue and giving me the opportunity to clarify and explain the situation on behalf of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. He sends his apologies that he could not be present tonight. First, I acknowledge the situation Deputy Cahill has represented with regard to landowners and families who want to progress their plans for building a house for their family, starting a local enterprise or developing a farm enterprise, as well as the job creation involved. Having been …

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this matter and firmly putting across the main concern he has for this year. Again, I will bring this back to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. I am at pains to indicate on his behalf that he is not personally involved with every decision on each project being brought forward. His main aim was to increase the budget allocation to the national development plan for road projects like the one mentioned here, the N24. He wants to ensure that through the work of the national development …

Can I make a point? Because this is my first time taking Committee Stage from this side, I do not know if I need to come in straightaway today. I am happy to wait until the next day. It is up to the House.

I am easy.

I thank the Deputy for raising this debate and important discussion. The figures he outlined, and the loss of life we have seen all over the world, reminds us all just how serious Covid-19 is and of the impact it has had on many people's lives, including those who have lost their lives, their families and many of those who have been left very ill. I again reiterate the importance of all of us all over the world working together, which is what we are trying to achieve through the WTO talks. More than 164 countries a…

I want to be clear with the Deputy that the Irish Government and people absolutely do care. The Irish response to the pandemic has been rooted in our commitment to the principle of universal and equitable access to vaccines and treatments. We will continue to use our influence across the world on that. It is right and fair to say, and I acknowledged it in my opening comments, that billions have been invested from the public purse by countries and governments all over the world on behalf of their taxpayers. That, in…

I thank Deputy O’Donnell for raising this important issue. It is important and timely because the new scheme is under consideration and will be brought to the House quite soon. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, was unable to make the debate, but I will feed in the comments and issues the Deputy has raised because he is right on waiting times, giving greater access to the scheme, reforming the scheme, dealing with ventilation and solar panels and many other issues. This scheme is targeted with a significant amount of money…

I again thank the Deputy for raising this matter. He has covered most of the issues that need to be addressed through the new schemes that are being brought forward. I have listened with interest to the points raised by the Deputy. I will make sure they are brought to the attention of the Minister and his team in the Department who are working on these matters. As I mentioned earlier, the new national residential retrofit plan, published on 4 November as part of the Climate Action Plan 2021, sets out how we will ac…

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this motion. I thank Senator Higgins and her colleagues for tabling the motion on the TRIPS waiver. I know it is something the Senator has genuinely worked on for a long period. I recognise that and it is well recognised around the House that her work on this matter is genuine. We can see from the support shown by her colleagues right across the House for her motion that there is an understanding of that. The Government and I recognise that the motion goes a long way to achi…

I thank the Deputy for the question, which gives me an opportunity to provide an update on the report and our action plan. Ireland has a robust suite of legislation to protect and support workers facing redundancies. The Cahill Duffy report was in response to particular terms of reference that were quite narrow and specific and do not address the generality of redundancies that arise in insolvency situations. Following extensive engagement with the social partners, the Oireachtas committee and many others over the …

I have to point out the Cahill Duffy report was in response to particular terms of reference that were quite narrow with regard to the case in Clerys. The authors of that report presented it to the Deputy’s committee and quite clearly said that the implementation of their report would not have prevented what happened in Debenhams. That was very loud and clear. We have allowed a discussion on this with the Deputy.

As a result of what happened in Debenhams, the Tánaiste, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy and myself met with the employees at Debenhams and said that in line with the programme for Government, we would review the legislation to see if we could strengthen and enhance it. It was from that that the plan of action would come. It is not a case of saying that if we implemented all of the recommendations of the Duffy Cahill report that would have solved Debenhams or any other redundancies. On potential redundancies in …

We all have a concern and that is why we are committed to this and there is a fund set aside to work with businesses and to support them right through the final stages of Covid-19, and recovery from that into the new year. There will be more announcements in that space today. We are very much committed to saving these jobs. I have not seen the Deputy’s committee report on the Duffy Cahill report or read it in detail but it is wrong in the view of the Government, and I will keep saying this, to continually say that …

The question related to the permit, so I will focus on that in a moment. In general, we try to analyse and identify any areas where there are critical skills gaps or a shortage of labour. The Department regularly engages with stakeholders through the various forums and also individually with different sectors and groups. We carry out a detailed analysis twice a year on every sector in respect of which shortages have been identified. Where evidence that is gathered clearly identifies shortages, we react and change t…

A couple of issues have been raised. The first is that of home care workers. I did not see Deputy Ó Cuív's debate during the week but it was discussed with the Taoiseach last week in the House. It is an issue we all have commented on lately. We are engaging, and will engage, with the home care providers in the sector to try to gather the evidence to make the case. We carried out two reviews over the last year since the onset of the pandemic. In April of last year we changed the scheme to allow permits for healthcar…