The aim of the Community Employment (CE) programme is to enhance the employability of disadvantaged and long-term unemployed people by providing work experience and training opportunities for them within their local communities on a temporary fixed term basis. In addition to providing valuable occupational experience and training as a stepping-stone to employment for people who are unemployed, schemes such as CE and Tús also provide important and, in many cases essential, services to their local communities As a re…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Before I address the specific issue raised, I would like to provide an outline of the extent of the school transport scheme. The school transport scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year, more than 149,000 children, including in excess of 18,000 children with special educational needs, are transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. There has b…

I again thank the Senator for the opportunity to update the House on school transport for the current school year. I reiterate that all eligible pupils who applied on time this year have now been facilitated on board a service for the 2022-23 school year. In addition, there has been a 40% increase in the number of tickets issued to concessionary pupils for the current school year compared with tickets issued for the 2021-22 school year. The Senator referred to a section of my response. I questioned the officials on…

The requirements in respect of distance and eligibility for the temporary alleviation measures are clear but they will be happy to engage with the Senator when he has more specifics. It is a good opportunity to remind people, as the Senator has done, that the closing date for applications is tomorrow. There is that small window and people who have not put in an application should do so as soon as possible.

I am pleased to present the Bill, which introduces important legislative reforms across a number of areas. The Bill is part of a suite of measures the Department of Justice continues to introduce to improve access to justice and modernise the courts system. While many of the amendments in the legislation are administrative in nature, when enacted it will have a positive impact on citizens, update the civil justice legal framework and further modernise and reform key areas of our civil law. The Bill includes amendme…

I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the Bill. I thank all the Senators for their contributions to the debate. Miscellaneous provisions Bills such as this offer an important opportunity to bring legislation up to date across a broad range of areas, from rebalancing occupier's liability to centralising and automating court offices and processes, and from improving citizenship and naturalisation procedures to further modernising our legislation in areas such as bankruptcy and data protection. When enac…

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising the issue of services at Naas General Hospital and to also acknowledge the Deputy’s work in advocating for the people of Kildare and west Wicklow. Naas General Hospital is an acute public hospital with 189 inpatient beds and 18 day-care beds, serving a catchment area with a population of over 250,000 people. The services in the hospital are designed to meet the needs of the adult population, that is people over 16 years of age, within this catchment area. Naas is a model 3 hospital…

I again thank the Deputy for raising this matter regarding the services at Naas General Hospital. I fully accept the importance of growing healthcare services for the people of Kildare and west Wicklow. The commitment of the Government to the future of this hospital is clear. Funding for Naas hospital as part of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group has continued to increase year on year. As I have already outlined, a new 12-bed isolation ward is due to open in Naas General Hospital this year and commissioning and equ…

I thank Deputy Whitmore for raising the issue. Local authorities are responsible for municipal waste collection and waste management planning within their functional areas. The obligations on local authorities in relation to collecting household waste are set out in section 33 of the Waste Management Act 1996, as amended. In summary, it provides that each local authority shall collect, or arrange for the collection of, household waste within its functional area. The obligation to collect or arrange for the collecti…

A recent report produced for Dublin City Council by the Institute of Public Administration found it would be contrary to competition law to exclude private companies from the waste collection market in favour of returning the function to local authorities. Altering the structure of the market for tendering by local authorities would take several years and require consideration of legal issues including competition and procurement law, potential legal challenges including on constitutional grounds, a full regulatory…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Before I address the issues raised, I will provide an outline of the extent of the school transport scheme. The scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year, over 149,000 children, including over 18,000 children with special educational needs, are transported daily to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. There has been an increase of 21% in tickets issued to eligible stude…

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan. I still encourage people to apply. We all make the assumption that the numbers this year will be the same as last year. This could well be the case but people will not be in the mix if they do not make an application. I suggest that they make an application anyway. Other Deputies will identify with the situation that Deputy O'Sullivan has described. It is the reason the review was conducted in the first place. It has been coming a long time but it is imminent. My view, and that of many of…

On behalf of the Minister for Transport, I thank the Deputies for the opportunity to address this issue and to provide the House with an update on the future development of the western rail corridor. As the Deputies may be aware, services have been operating between Limerick and Athenry via Ennis on a section of the western rail corridor since 2010. In 2021, two reports were published in respect of the proposed reopening of the western rail corridor, phases 2 and 3, and the Minister for Transport brought the conclu…

As highlighted previously, and noting the conclusion in the JASPERS review that there was a lack of strategic context for planning investment in the heavy rail network, in 2021 the Minister for Transport, in partnership with the Minister for Infrastructure, announced his intention to undertake an all-island strategic rail review. This review is considering how the rail network on the island of Ireland can promote sustainable connectivity between the major cities, enhance regional accessibility and support balanced …

A vibrant circular economy is an essential part of a sustainable, carbon-neutral and resource-efficient economy. The first whole-of-government circular economy strategy was published in December 2021 by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to provide a national policy framework for Ireland’s transition to a circular economy. Alongside this, the Department is playing its part in promoting opportunities available in the circular economy at local level. This aligns with Our Rural Future, which…

As the Deputy will be aware, the future board leaders pilot 2023 is a joint initiative by the Leadership Academy, a project of The Wheel, and Boardmatch Ireland. It is primarily funded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science through the National Training Fund. While my Department does not deal directly with the future board leaders pilot, it does provide funding for a variety of other schemes that provide supports for volunteer board members in the community and voluntary…

No.

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for bringing forward this Private Member's Bill entitled the Safe Deposit Boxes and Related Deposits Bill 2022. I am pleased to inform the House that the Government is not opposing the Bill. It is a detailed Bill which covers a wide-ranging and complex area. In the first instance, it is important to understand what it sets out to achieve. Part 2 seeks to enable the establishment of a register of property deposited in safe deposit boxes in relevant financial institutions, which would mainly be …

I again welcome the debate. I again thank Deputy Ó Cuív for bringing the Bill forward and for tonight's discussion. It is the start of a much more detailed and interesting discussion where we will get to pull it apart a little more on Committee Stage. As I said, this is a very complicated area cutting across at least three Departments, including the Departments of Finance and Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, and my Department. The provisions concern a large number of agencies, including the Centr…

CE schemes across the country play a vital role in providing essential services to local communities. Since December 2021, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I have been pleased to announce a number of reforms and enhancements to the scheme including, most recently, the extension of the criteria of those who can participate on CE schemes to the adult dependents of those in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance and, in support of Ukrainian nationals living here, a reduction in the live register qualifying period from 12…