David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. We have had a number of discussions with the Department and the trade unions in regard to just transition. What we are creating is this new subhead to allow for what the Minister called a token allocation of €1,000, which is essentially to allow for the establishment in order that the expenditure in the budget can be spent. Is that not an acknowledgement that we are only starting this process? One of the questions I asked the Department was, given we all knew just transition was coming at us for some time, why is it only now that the funding has been put in place and why was it not done earlier. Why were the preparations for some of the budget allocations, such as the €20 million for retrofitting and the special programme in the midlands, only being put in place now and not much earlier?