The National Training Fund is a dedicated fund to upskill people in employment and provide training and reskilling opportunities for those who are unemployed. It also funds research on existing and likely future skills requirements of the economy. In 2023, more than €9 million is being invested from the fund in these schemes for these purposes. More than €3 million is allocated to the expert group on future skills needs and the labour market research unit in SOLAS and for the operation of the nine regional skills f…

The NTF surplus stood at €1.37 billion at the end of 2022 and is forecast to increase to €1.5 billion by the end of 2023. I am very much aware of those proposals and am engaging with those organisations and others to try to come up with proposals in advance of the discussions for the Estimates.

I thank my colleague, Deputy Colm Burke, for raising this important matter. I am pleased to respond here today on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health. Hereditary haemochromatosis is a common recessive disease resulting in over-absorption of iron from the gastrointestinal tract. Over time, excess iron accumulates in the cells of organs including the liver, pancreas and heart, causing damage. Research into the condition by the HSE found that one in 83 people are genetically predisposed to develop the dise…

I thank Deputy Burke for raising this important matter, which affects so many people and to which so many others are predisposed as well. We have objectively seen service improvements for patients with haemochromatosis in recent years. The 2019 GP contractual improvements involved moving services. People sometimes had to go to hospital for services that can now be accessed from the local GP. The plan this year is to hire more advanced nurse practitioners. That, through liver treatment and the management of liver di…

I am doing them all.

I thank my colleague for raising this very important matter and for his impassioned plea on behalf of his own constituents in County Mayo in terms of the need for improved public transport services, particularly improved bus capacity and airport access. In my own ministerial role, I am also very taken with the points he makes about the importance of capacity for college students. We are doing more in the north west in terms of access to university with ATU in Castlebar, which is now a university town. Indeed we are…

I certainly will resist the urge, too. I thank Deputy Dillon for taking the opportunity to highlight, alongside the need for improved public transport links for rural Ireland and County Mayo, the strong concerns and views in his own community and constituency in respect of the N17 from Knock to Collooney and the importance of that project to the west and particularly to counties Mayo and Sligo. I will certainly feed those comments back to my Cabinet colleague, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and indeed to my other…

Indeed, that is a prescient point about how some people, not the Ceann Comhairle, view the expenditure of money in urban Ireland versus rural Ireland. I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for raising the matter. I am happy to respond on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Rural and Community Development. The Deputy raised an interesting point about where the responsibility falls. That is not to shirk the broader issue. However, it is the view of the Department of Rural and Community Development that it has no remit in regard…

The Deputy makes an important point about cost-benefit analyses. This has been a bugbear of mine in my constituency for a long time. There are parts of certain rural communities, including some in County Wicklow, that will never measure up to a cost-benefit analysis that is based on an urban area. The Deputy poses an interesting challenge, to the system and to the Government, as to how we can have a more nuanced understanding of cost versus benefit, with the need sometimes to have the emphasis as much on the word "…

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and Senators for the opportunity to address the House on this matter. I thank Senator McDowell who sought this discussion. We have spoken about the issue and I am very grateful to have the opportunity to explore it. I express my gratitude to the members of the Garda Reserve for their commitment and dedication to community safety. The time volunteered by all reservists has been of huge benefit to their communities since the Garda Reserve was founded in 2006 by the then Minister fo…

In the week I have been described in one newspaper as a poor Michael McDowell tribute act, which I do not think was meant as a compliment, I am now taking it as such after listening to Senator McDowell's worthy intervention.

First, I am delighted to be here to take this legislation. I thank my colleagues in the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party and the Fine Gael Seanad group for tabling this legislation and for working so proactively on it. I am delighted we have an opportunity to discuss it. I thank the members of Young Fine Gael for all their work. Whatever people's political persuasion in this House, is it not great that we live in a country where young people can join a political party, put forward ideas, speak for their generation and…

The first thing I want to say in regard to the change in the law to protect peace officers and provide maximum sentences is that everybody in the House, including the Deputy, shares the view that it is important that we put legislation in place to send out a very clear message and solidarity from this, the people's House, with those on the front line that it simply will not be tolerated if anybody tries to attack or assault a member of An Garda Síochána or ram their vehicle or attack any other emergency worker. I k…

I think we both agreed on the issue of people with short sentences and how we can try to help them be diverted from prisons in the first place. With my other hat is on as Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, I am delighted that this week the Government agreed to establish a new prison education task force which will be jointly chaired by me and the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, between now and the end of the year. It is an important step to see what we can do to help peop…

I fundamentally agree with the Deputy that there should never be a scenario where, for example, a school, workshop or training centre in a prison cannot open and people are instead sent out to a yard. That is a recipe for a variety of challenges, including challenges for prison officers as well as trying to break the cycle that we collectively want to break. I have spoken to the director general of the Irish Prison Service. One of the first things we will examine in the new prison education task force, which will h…

I thank Deputy Kenny for raising the question. I very much appreciate the fact that he referenced the challenging situation gardaí can find themselves in. I want to take this opportunity to thank members of An Garda Síochána. There have been well over 125 anti-immigration protests in the city alone. Gardaí have been working in very challenging environments and I want to thank them for that. I would like to condemn in the strongest possible way any incident or threat of violence against vulnerable people in our soci…

I agree with the Deputy that he is entirely correct and the security assessment entirely tallies with his view that it is a statement of fact that there are a number of small, right-wing, far-right actors who move from community to community to stoke fear and division and, on occasion, engage in criminal activity. We should not overstate the number, nor should we tolerate their actions. There is a line between protest and the other side of that line, and they are often on the wrong side of that line. There are a nu…

I absolutely believe in democratic oversight and oversight structures with regard to An Garda Síochána and our justice system - of course, I do. However, I am also conscious that when we talk about this subject in the House, we are talking about pieces of information we see. An Garda Síochána has a helicopter view of information and of intelligence and in terms of its assessment of the security situation and the individual judgment of the garda when he or she is on the front line of what can often be, as the Deputy…

I thank Deputy Berry for this important question. The Government is committed to doing all that we can to build stronger safer communities. A key part of that has to be supporting An Garda Síochána, increasing the numbers, resourcing and equipping it properly. That is why we have given the highest allocation ever to An Garda Síochána in budget 2023 of €2.1 billion. This level of funding will provide for a steady pipeline, if I may use that phrase, of new gardaí in coming years. The Government will continue to work …

The aim is to recruit 1,000 new gardaí this year. The exact net increase depends on a number of variables, such as how many people retire or resign from the Garda this year. The high-level target I have set is that by the end of this year, it will be the first year since the Covid pandemic that Garda numbers are back growing. This should be the first year that recruitment begins to outpace the number leaving An Garda Síochána. If the Deputy asked me to make my best guesstimate as to how we get to the 15,000, I woul…