I warmly welcome the publication of this Bill, which marks a significant milestone in the transfer of specialist community-based disability services from the Department of Health to my own Department. This transfer is an important step towards achieving a more equal Irish society and towards honouring the human rights of all people in Ireland, including people with disabilities. I look forward to working closely with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, on this new and important area of responsibility. Equally, …

The Government is committed to continuing to reduce the costs of childcare. We have taken important measures in this year's budget to provide core funding to childcare providers to enable them to better pay their staff, so we can get that quality and we can retain staff in the sector. In exchange for that, we will get the fee-freeze mechanism, which will be the first time in the State we have ever had such a mechanism. We have brought in some other changes in this year's budget including the extension of the univer…

I am very much aware of the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People's position paper on child poverty, which I published on my Department's website last week, along with the final Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, BOBF, annual report and updated indicator set. I had excellent engagement with the advisory council on the issue, and I met with them in December specifically on the child poverty paper. The Deputy will be aware that it is the Department of Social Protection that leads on the Roadmap for …

It is always very important that we would address the issue of child poverty in this House. With regard to the specific elements of food poverty, the Deputy will be aware that in last year's budget and this year's, the free school meals programme was broadened. This is probably the most practical step we can take to provide immediate sustenance to young children and to support their education. Further to that, the Minister for Education has announced a broadening of the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools…

The joined-up element is very important. The successor strategy to the Better Outcomes, Better Futures will have a significant child poverty focus within it. As a subset of this we will also have the EU child guarantee, which is guidance, support and some financial support coming from the European Union. The child guarantee and the actions we will take there will sit within the wider Better Outcomes, Better Futures work. That joined-up element is very important and this is why I am engaging very closely, in the fir…

I firmly believe, like the Deputy, that the rate of pay in the sector should reflect the value of the work that early-years educators and school-age childcare practitioners do for children, for families, for society and the economy. The most recent available data, from the annual early years sector profile survey, indicate that the average hourly wage in the sector in 2021 was €12.60, which is below the living wage, with many staff working part time or on temporary contracts. This is not sustainable and is not acce…

The Deputy has my commitment to deliver on a better pay scale. I think I have demonstrated that by the €67 million that we are providing specifically for that in this year's budget. In a full year that will grow to €207 million. That is a firm commitment. The Deputy also has my commitment to develop the profession. That is demonstrated through the workforce development plan that I published in December and that my Department will be working to implement. We are not just talking about policies anymore. The Governmen…

I thank the Deputy. The expert group reported in December. We are now implementing its findings. The first part of that is the substantial additional allocation of funding this year of €69 million. That is the first step towards that, but there are other elements in terms of introducing a DEIS-type model for childcare and broadening out the national childcare scheme, NCS. We took a small step in that in this year's budget. In next year's budget, budget 2023, we will seek to invest considerably more in the NCS, whic…

I am aware that this matter is one of importance to the Deputy and to other Members of the House who have also raised questions about refuge provision in counties Cavan and Monaghan with me and my predecessors. I know there is strong interest locally. I have recently received correspondence from Cavan County Council in this regard. The response to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, DSGBV, is a cross-departmental and multi-agency issue. It is co-ordinated by the Department of Justice. Tusla, the Child and F…

There is absolutely no doubt that we do not have enough refuge spaces in this country. No one disputes that fact. That is why the accommodation review was undertaken to outline where the gaps are and where the lack of coverage and availability of spaces is most acute. It was undertaken to identify the areas where there are communities, families, primarily women, fleeing abusive situations, who have to travel very long distances to find refuge. I have no doubt that when the review is published, it will illustrate wh…

The significant change that is being made in moving the responsibility for refuges and other services to the Department of Justice is one advocacy groups and the NGOs working in the sector have been calling for for a long time. We ran this audit and it became clear that this was the call from the sector. We are implementing that now. That is important. Even though responsibility in this area is moving out of Tusla, in the time that I have been Minister, we have significantly increased investment in Tusla in respect…

In December of last year, I announced a €10 million grant programme to improve ventilation and reduce the transmission of Covid-19 in early learning and childcare settings. This provided services with grants ranging from €1,500 to €4,500. The rental or purchase of HEPA filters is among the items of eligible expenditure under this grant programme and guidance has been provided on the HEPA filters that are suitable for use in childcare settings. The grant programme opened for applications on 16 December. The original…

I do not have the specific figure for the number of HEPA filters. I will speak to my Department and see if we can get that figure to the Deputy as quickly as possible. This grant scheme was designed specifically to deal with the issue of ventilation. We know that providers were very interested and had been in touch with my Department to see how we could facilitate them. We facilitated them with this very significant grant. As the Deputy will have seen from the figures I have cited to him, there has been a very sign…

We have taken very extensive measures to protect children, and the grant we provided this December is not the first grant. A €5 million outdoor play grant was provided in June of last year, and just short of €30 million was provided for a reopening grant in August 2020, around the time I entered this role, to support the reopening of services following the initial large-scale closure. Very significant capital grants have been provided to childcare facilities all over the country to make them ready and to make those…

I believe that significant advancements can be made through my Department's co-ordination of the EU child guarantee. It is an important initiative which aims to combat social exclusion by guaranteeing access for children who are in need of a range of key services. I will publish our national action plan for the child guarantee by March of this year. The commitments under the guarantee address critical matters such as free access to early childhood education; education; healthcare for children in need; healthy nutri…

Yes, very much so. The child guarantee will be one piece and will sit within the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, BOBF, successor strategy. The child guarantee is focused on children in need. That is the term used in the EU provision, which refers to the delivery of free childcare, free education and free healthcare to children in need. Obviously, that very much encompasses the groups about which the Deputy talks. There is some EU funding available under the child guarantee, which is particularly beneficial. Once…

The issue of children and young people who are homeless is identified in the programme for Government. There is a commitment to bring forward a strategy in this regard. That will be led by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage but my Department will also be feeding into it. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and I have met on that issue once already and we will seek to do so again. The work being done between our two Departments can be knit into the child guarantee and the successor to the Bet…

The national participation framework for children and young people's participation in decision-making was published in April last year. It plays a vital role in ensuring that all children and young people are respected and listened to and that their views are taken on board routinely in the public services offered to them. The framework's implementation is actively supported by my Department through the capacity-building measures and training provided by Hub na nÓg. The hub was established as a centre of excellence…

I thank the Deputy for her advocacy on these issues. There are very tangible examples of the youth participation framework acting to influence Government policy. When the climate action plan was being drafted, there was a youth participation strand to get the views of young people on that issue. Similarly, the youth justice policy launched in 2020 is absolutely essential with regard to its application to young people and, again, young people were consulted on the content. To give a very practical example, as the De…

The key practical step we are taking is the provision of the €150,000 grant that is available to a whole range of youth organisations to allow them to upskill and train their members, increasing their ability to undertake youth participation. The Deputy has referenced a number of vulnerable groups. That is particularly important. That is the next step. Hub na nÓg is really focusing on not only how to listen to children, but how to listen to Traveller children, very young children and children with a disability to g…