I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I am delighted to have the opportunity to address her here from my new perch on the backbenches. I am at the very edge of the Government side right now, clinging on for a few more weeks, but I am very aware that a cold wind will soon blow, pluck me up and deposit me on the Opposition side of the House. However, I am pleased to be here and the Green Party is pleased to be here. On a very serious note, I thank the people of Dublin West for renewing their trust, faith and confidence in me …

The mother and baby institutions payment scheme opened for applications in March this year. As of 21 October, almost 5,300 applications have been received. Nearly 3,900 notices of determination have issued to applicants, more than 82% of which contain an offer of benefits under the scheme. Applicants have six months to consider their offer before they need to respond. While my Department's budget in 2024 was based on higher upfront applicant numbers, this scheme is open for five years so there is plenty of time for…

I thank the Deputy very much. The review must be completed by mid-2026. That will give a span of time through which the scheme has been operating. There will also be a stronger sense then of the level of uptake of the scheme. We were expecting a surge of applications at the start, in the way we had seen with the birth information and tracing legislation, but it is now clear that the level of applications will be more gradual. We will have a better understanding of the number of applications in late 2025 and early 2…

The scheme that was legislated for in this regard provides redress in the form of financial payments and enhanced medical cards for former residents of mother and baby homes and county home institutions. That was the definition and basis upon which eligibility for this scheme was decided. It was a response to the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes and county home institutions. We all know that there were many institutions in Ireland, over decades, some of them run by religious organisations and …

We all recognise the hugely important work done by early learning and care staff and school-age childcare staff. We also recognise that the pay they receive does not meet the hugely important work that they undertake. It was my objective as Minister in the past four years to do more so that their pay would meet their requirements and recognise the hugely important role they play in supporting children's development, learning and care. I wish to express my continued commitment to improving pay and conditions for ear…

The improvements to pay are absolutely crucial and we agree on recruitment and retention. We will not attract the young women and men who graduate from early learning and care degrees around the country, both level seven and eight degrees, into this sector if they do not see a long term future for themselves. That is why when I first introduced core funding, I linked it to rates of pay. That is why there is an allocation in core funding for rates of pay and it is why we have provided this funding allocation in budg…

Significant steps have been taken over the last four years on improving pay but we absolutely need to go further. I would love to see a process initiated where we start to look at how we align the pay of early years professionals with the pay of other educators across our society. That will be expensive and we have to recognise that. It is really good value for the State because I see the investment and the work early years educators do with babies and young children and the support they give through education but …

When a child cannot be in the care of their own family and when a child has to come into the care of the State, the very next best place for a child is in the care of another family. That is why foster carers are so important and that is why I have worked to stabilise and grow the number of foster carers we have. In 2014, we had 4,210 foster carers and this year, the most recent data shows we have 3,842 foster carers. I have prioritised support for foster carers. In last year's budget and in this year's budget, I i…

I have found that for people departing, age is one of the major criteria. People who have fostered all their lives and are now in their mid-70s and simply are not in a position to do it anymore. That is a crucial reason. Our biggest problem is recruitment. A lot of people who come into the foster care system as foster carers are care experienced themselves and know the benefit of what it did for them. Tusla is taking a number of steps. It now has a strategic plan for foster care services and a new national director…

I thank the Deputy. There is certainly merit in considering her idea. The Deputy is probably aware that Tusla is in the AV room today, where I am hosting representatives who are coming in to talk to Members of the Oireachtas about foster caring and how some of us or our constituents who are interested in it can deliver that message and make it clear how people can sign up. Tusla is doing a lot of work on that. It did an amazing garden in Bloom this year, which had a huge amount of throughput and provided people wit…

I am taking Questions Nos. 6 and 25 together. The Government is firmly committed to the ratification of the second optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC. Ireland signed the second optional protocol in 2000, and the Government is committed to taking the further step of ratifying it as soon as possible. Ratifying the protocol will mean that Ireland is officially bound by its terms under international law. In Irish treaty practice, the State must be in a position to meet the obligati…

I thank the Deputy. I would make a comparison with the work completed in recent weeks on the optional protocol to the disability convention. It was an optional protocol to the treaty we had signed. Ratification had been blocked by the fact that some key legislation had not been passed. We passed the assisted decision-making legislation, which was important. I brought together an interdepartmental group in March and in Cabinet three weeks ago we announced that the optional protocol had been signed. We might discuss …

I thank the Deputy. I do not have the details with me, so I will come back to her in writing on that point. It is very fair. It is important that we understand the position. My Department is highly focused on the implementation of key legislation like this. I have seen that where there is a little bit of political will behind something, we can move the ratification of an optional protocol reasonably quickly. We were able to do that with the disability one. I will ask my officials to start to reach out to other Depa…

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for raising this question. I acknowledge the challenges faced by children and young people in terms of accessing services, particularly essential therapy services, in Mayo. The lead agencies there are experiencing ongoing challenges in recruiting across a range of disciplines and grades to fully staff the CDNTs. Recruitment is ongoing for administrative and therapy staff in CDNTs via the HSE recruitment process. Since March 2024, there has been a net increase of seven whole-time equivale…

I fully agree with the Deputy on the challenges of recruitment. It is the big challenge in disabilities services right now. The core solution to that is to train more health and social care professionals, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and psychiatrists. We need more of them because the level of demand and need has increased, both because of enhanced levels of autism among children and young people and also because older people with a disability are living longer, and that…

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her passionate advocacy on behalf of that child and his family. What I have done as Minister is to recognise that for so long disability was the poor relation within the Department of Health. We have taken it out of the Department of Health and brought it into my Department. That applied from March 2023, more than 18 months ago. There is so much more that I and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, would have loved to do, if we had the time to do it. However, in those 18 months we …

I thank the Deputy. It was published on Tuesday. We are delighted to publish it. I am delighted to have published it because I asked for this to be undertaken. There is a lot happening in the early years section in my Department. We had a busy summer negotiating another really successful budget. We have been bringing out extra support for AIMS, rolling out equal start and the new DEIS model. I have to prioritise and getting the money for next year was my priority. We have now published the review. It is an internat…

An interesting point is that more than 1 million children have done ECCE, about one fifth of our population, as it has been available since 2009. The next steps will be a decision for the next Government. I have strong views. I agree with the Deputy. ECCE is the cornerstone of early learning and care. I would love to see it on a statutory basis so that every child would have a legal right to ECCE in the same way as primary and secondary school places. I would legislate for that. The capacity issue is huge. If there…

I am interested in a mid-year entry point, which there was originally but was removed. Where a child is born just on the cusp of the next year, it can be frustrating for parents. It is worth considering that day-to-day change in the operation of the scheme. We spoke earlier about early years professionals. Ultimately, it comes down to State investment because if the State is to be more directly involved, which I think it should, it will cost capital and current money in terms of the employment of staff. We spoke ab…

The implementation of the progressing disability services programme is agreed Government and HSE policy. This policy supports the reconfiguration of children's disability services to provide equitable child- and family-centred services based on need rather than diagnosis. Crucially, this aligns with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The HSE's roadmap for service improvement 2023-26, disability services for children and young people, was approved by the HSE board and launched last October…