I ask the Minister to provide further details on the €20 million in budget 2021 for SUSI, which will see funding return to 2019 levels, and the demand projections upon which this figure is based. I have raised this with the Minister previously at the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The additional funding for SUSI announced in budget 2021 will bring funding back to 2019 levels but given the economic environment in which we find ourselves, will this be eno…

I welcome the Minister's recent announcement of a review of SUSI. I have been calling for such a review for a long time and the information we gathered in August of this year spoke to that very much. I ask the Minister to focus on the situation facing mature students who have been forced to move back home due to the current housing situation. Currently we have mature students, often with their own children, being assessed on their parents' income. The burden of proof required to demonstrate financial independence i…

I thank the Minister and assure him that I will make an input into the review. I also wish to raise the matter of the exclusion of online and part-time students. This particularly militates against students with disabilities who cannot go on campus or engage in full-time courses because of their conditions. This discrimination is totally wrong. I am concerned about those who are looking forward to studying next year. Given the current climate, we need to encourage more people to engage in third level education and …

I ask the Minister to include young people with autism or their representatives, including his own brother, to ensure that we meet the educational needs of extremely bright young people with autism.

My question relates to students from the North. I know the Minister gave me assurances with regard to Erasmus. Can he give me the same assurances with regard to Horizon Europe as it pertains to students from the North? What else can we do to ensure greater mobility of students across the island and to create a collection of opportunities for those students? I am also cognisant of the brain drain from the North of Ireland. One third of students from the North of Ireland go to Britain to study. There is no reason the…

I thank Deputy Ó Broin for bringing the Bill to the House and I thank the Minister for accepting it. If we are to turn the tide and end the cruelty of homelessness, we need to address the heart of the problem. We need to reform our housing market so that it is no longer designed to maximise profit for landlords and lead to ever-increasing housing prices. Deeper reforms are needed but for today we need to help people at risk of being pushed into homelessness before it happens. Many do not have the luxury of time. Th…

I have an interest in what has happened with Arcadia and the provisional liquidators that have been appointed because almost 50 workers in Mayo have been affected. I, too, am asking for the Government to do everything it can to facilitate the saving of those jobs. That is imperative. These workers are all going in over the Christmas period to work really hard, but the uncertainty is causing them such anxiety and worry because they have lives and many of them have mortgages. I ask that the Government do everything i…

While I accept that the Minister of State said he hopes a buyer will be found, if one is not found, the very minimum that needs to be done is that these workers should have an assurance that their collective agreement will be honoured at the end of the season. That would be of some consolation to them. These are really important jobs to Mayo, as the Minister of State said. There is a further issue with some of these workers who volunteered to go in to get the shops in Ballina and Castlebar ready before 27 December …

I thank the Minister and take on board what she said about the PPS numbers. The reason that I submitted this question was that a constituent has had construction staff sitting idle for months now because they could not do the Safe Pass test. Will the Minister liaise directly with SOLAS to ensure that at least those people who are waiting for PPS numbers can do the Safe Pass test? The woman employing the constriction staff has been asking for flexibility to be shown for months to allow her new employees to be able t…

I take on board what the Minister says. I look forward to an improvement in it. Perhaps the Minister could liaise on the transfer over of cars. People are trying to get their cars transferred over but cannot do so because they do not have PPS numbers. A bit of common sense and flexibility around it would go a long way. I commend staff who have done Trojan work on this, the PUP and other issues. A situation is arising for the workers and the Mandate union in Shaws in Castlebar. They think they are not entitled to th…

I welcome this motion being brought forward by Solidarity-People Before Profit. I absolutely condemn the amendment put forward by the Government. During the discussion this morning I was minded of the time I spent in London. Hundreds of thousands of our nurses were forced to emigrate there, and nothing has changed. All the camogie and football teams there were full of nurses that this country did not want. We are giving them the exact same message now. There is no justifiable reason anyone would oppose the payment …

I welcome the inquiry into the prescribing of valproate, known as Epilim, to pregnant women without informing them of the harm it was likely to do to their unborn children which was announced last week by the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. I thank the Minister for keeping his word. When is the inquiry going to commence? Will the Minister engage with OACS Ireland, the families impacted and Epilepsy Ireland in designing the terms of reference in order to establish who knew what and when and why nobody did anythin…

I wish to ask the Minister whether, in her view, cleaners are critical staff in the running of schools, and if that view will be reflected in how she approaches pension reform for long-service cleaners. Cleaners have always played a central and vital role in schools but, with Covid, their importance has increased. Does the Department have any plans to move cleaners into the public service pension scheme to reflect their critical role in the health and safety of children?

To say we give schools the money and they are responsible for this is an abdication of responsibility. Whereas they are not legally defined as such, these people are certainly public servants. It is argued that they are not employees of the State, despite the fact that the body that employs them on a long-term basis is funded by the State. The third reason put forward is these people have not made public sector pension contributions throughout their working lives but they have not been given the right to do so. Lik…

We have heard all those arguments before. We heard them in the cases of school secretaries and caretakers. Recently the Government finally agreed to sit down for talks to regularise the pay, conditions of employment and pension provision of school secretaries and caretakers, which is a welcome development. I look forward to an outcome that they have waited on for a long time. These people are critical components of the educational system and they deserve to have this rightly reflected in work and pay conditions. Th…

This question is about the language community schemes, which are essential for the promotion of the Irish language in Mayo and elsewhere. The scheme makes it possible to employ a language development officer, to provide funding to run an office and to provide activities to promote the Irish language. I ask if there will be any funding difference between language community schemes located in an area with an Irish language network or a Gaeltacht services town.

The Minister of State has given me an assurance that no consideration has been given to proposals that would cut funding for the language community schemes based in the towns. I know from my constituency that there are cases where a scheme seeking to become a Gaeltacht service town are concerned that they may lose funding as a result. That would result in them being unable to continue employing an Irish language development officer. I take the Minister of State's assurance that there are no plans to cut the funding…

It is very welcome if the Minister of State is saying that people do not need to be concerned about any differentiation in how the money is allocated. From my engagement with the people involved I would argue that €55,000 needs to be confirmed for each scheme in the new SPG. There is a need for the Department to ensure that the increased funding in the budget is reflected in the funding that actually reaches the SPGs. I would encourage the Minister to engage further with Foras na Gaeilge to make sure that this happ…

I thank the Minister for the update. I welcome the €250 being made available for each student. It is important the Government recognises the difficult circumstances many students have been facing. Despite the amazing efforts of third level educators and staff, as well as students' unions and what they have done throughout the country, remote learning has had a negative impact on the quality of the service provided. I raised with the Minister a couple of weeks ago the concerns I have about blended learning and the i…

I welcome the €6 million in funding that was announced for regional airports. Why, however, has a derogation not being sought from the EU for this funding, as was done in respect of the €22 million funding allocated to Shannon and Cork airports? Has the Department checked that this funding meets the EU state aid rules under the temporary framework and can we get a breakdown of that funding for the airports and the associated timeline?