Togher community got equipment and the Carraig Centre in Ballincollig got room dividers. I am just giving the Deputy examples. There are some bigger projects and they will take longer. That is why it is a €50 million fund and €30 million this year and €20 million next year is how we want it spent. I would say to anybody who can spend it to get at it now boys and do not waste time. Get the money out there to the communities that need it. My Department has a suite of other schemes. If local authorities are not delive…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The Town Centre First policy is a major cross-government policy that aims to tackle vacancy, combat dereliction and breathe new life into our town centres. It supports the Our Rural Future vision for a thriving rural Ireland, which is integral to our national economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being and development. A key aim of both this policy and the Our Rural Future policy is addressing vacancy and dereliction and ensuring that the policies and schemes i…

I thank the Deputies. They are both right. Plenty of money is available. It has been made available to local authorities to identify these buildings and to purchase them. Now of course my Department is providing €100,000 per annum to each local authority for a town regeneration officer. The Department is committed to providing this funding for a fixed three-year period. Some 24 town regeneration officers have been appointed. The remaining two positions in counties Kerry and Kildare will be filled shortly. This give…

I do not think my Department can do anything in regard to perfecting title on properties but what we can do is support individuals through the Croí Cónaithe fund administered by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. That is a popular fund. The threshold has now been increased to €50,000 for a vacant property and €80,000 for a derelict property. However, it does not have to be derelict either. It can be vacant or gone past use. They can be repurposed through the RRDF. That is a good fund for loca…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 78 and 84 together. The CLÁR programme provides funding under a number of different measures for small-scale infrastructural projects in designated rural areas. As Minister for Rural and Community Development, it gives me great satisfaction to visit these projects. I get around to a good few of them and see at first hand the excellent work that has taken place over recent years with funding from the programme. CLÁR is designed to support a vast array of projects that will benefit pe…

I thank Deputy Naughten for raising this issue. I know he has raised it on a number of occasions. I have written to my colleagues, the Ministers for Health and Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and I will meet with them shortly. Ultimately, it will be a Government decision as to how we deal with this matter, because, as we know, it was a whole-of-government response to Covid. We will progress at whatever stage and whatever decisions are made will be brought to Cabinet.

I am pleased to bring the Social Welfare Bill (Child Benefit) Bill 2023 to Seanad Éireann. The purpose of the Bill is to give legislative effect to the child benefit summer bonus of €100 for each qualifying child, announced by the Government in February of this year. I am glad to say that the Bill received broad support in the Dáil. I welcome the support of all parties in the Dáil in that regard. It is good that we have common ground when it comes to supporting parents with children and teenagers. Child benefit is …

I thank the Senators for their contributions. I will respond to a few of the issues raised. Senator Burke raised the issue of jury service and a specific case there. I am happy to look at that. I can get further details from him and I will follow up on that. The Senator mentioned the hot school meals programmes and where some schools cook on site and some schools get the meals delivered and they are hot when they arrive - they are in containers. Senator Wall raised that as well. By the end of this year, the plan is…

It is only to cover this payment.

I thank the Deputy for raising this. In regard to CE schemes, we have made a good number of improvements and allowed people to stay on longer. We have changed the scheme to adapt to a changing labour market. We have agreed the State pension age will remain 66. We are bringing changes that will take effect from 1 January 2024, whereby people will have an option to work longer if they wish to. As to the CE schemes, a person cannot benefit from two social protection payments. In other words, he or she cannot stay on a…

No. I know the CE scheme provides services but it is a job activation measure primarily.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The free travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. There are over 1 million users with direct eligibility. The estimated expenditure on free travel in 2023 is €95 million. It is important to note that, in general, access to a free travel pass for those aged under 66 is a secondary benefit linked to a person being in receipt of certain primary social protection payments from my Department such …

I appreciate the points the Deputy is making. I know people who have epilepsy and it is not easy for them. If someone loses his or her licence due to a seizure, that is an awful place to be. I understand that. As I said, I met with Epilepsy Ireland last year because I wanted to discuss this matter to see what I could do. The problem I have, one that the officials in the Department are at pains to point out to me, is that the free travel pass is linked to the social welfare payment the person receives, whether that …

As soon as I get the report, I will see what it says and consider it carefully. The first person I need to talk to is the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, because the Government has made some very positive changes recently in reducing the cost of public transport, particularly for young people. Perhaps we need to consider that in circumstances where someone is medically certified as being unable to drive or loses his or her driver's licence due to a medical condition, he or she should have an automatic en…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The Irish Hospice Foundation, IHF, secured a grant of €60,000 for research in budget 2020 from the then Minister for Social Protection. The purpose of this research was to carry out an exploratory investigation into the economics of bereavement in Ireland, a topic that had not yet been studied in this country and represented a knowledge gap. As my Department provides a range of supports for people following bereavement, this research appeared to be a logical step in suppo…

We had a major national campaign last year to promote and raise awareness of additional needs payments. There were adverts on the radio and in the newspapers, and there was also an extensive social media campaign. We made a number of changes to simplify the process and make it easier for people to apply, and I am pleased to inform the House we recently introduced an online application process for additional needs payments. A number of Deputies had been asking for that and I am glad it is now in place. On top of tha…

I thank the Deputy. He and I both know funerals are a very tough time for a family, without the additional stress of worrying about the costs and so on. If people need help, therefore, they should look up the website and apply online, or call or visit their local Intreo office. Funeral directors tend to be quite good at directing people to these services. I am happy to talk to my officials to see whether we can carry out some further promotional work with a focus on funeral costs. We can do it through the likes of …

Last September, I announced the largest social protection budget in the history of the State, providing more than €2.2 million in supports. This was in recognition of the pressures facing households due to the increasing cost of living. In addition to the substantial package of supports provided as part of the budget, in February I announced a further €410 million spring bonus package of social protection measures. The €200 cost-of-living bonus payment made in April is one of a range of these supports. This €200 lu…

I think we are talking about two different issues. A double payment and a lump-sum payment are not the same. Qualified adults who are not in receipt of a primary payment in their own right did not receive a lump-sum payment, but the October double payment and the Christmas bonus were both double payments, so a person in receipt of the primary payment received double his or her overall weekly payment inclusive of any additional payments for qualified adults. The €200 spring payment is different. It is not a double p…

The Government made a decision that 1.2 million people would receive €260 million in supports as part of the spring payments. We have taken a number of different steps to help people with the cost of living. That has included increases to weekly payments, double payments, and has also included lump-sum payments. At the end of last year, the Deputy will remember we had the double payment in October and at Christmas and we also had lump-sum payments - we had a €400 lump sum on the fuel allowance, €500 lump sum carer'…