Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will take those questions. We secured a very significant increase in DSGBV funding. Additional money went to Tusla and it then allocated significant additional funding. Additional core funding of €2.7 million was provided, bringing the core funding for the DSGBV area up to €28 million. An additional Covid contingency fund of €2 million was also provided for this year considering the particular pressures which the Chairman identified the DSGBV services as being under. I would like to continue to grow the amount of funding we provide on a capital level to DSGBV services.

The Chairman is absolutely right. One of the very few benefits of Covid for the country has been to lift the lid on the levels of DSGBV taking place across the country. We need to respond to that through the provision of services. We also need to respond through the provision of other means. As the Chairman is aware, Tusla is undertaking a review of accommodation at the moment. By April or May, we will get the result of that, which will be very important in guiding our future investment in infrastructure throughout the country. I am conscious that it is difficult to get capital funding for additional DSGBV services in new locations. I want to look at that issue. As the Chairman knows, there is wider responsibility for DSGBV services across Departments and Government agencies. That is something we committed to in the programme for Government. It is being led by the Minister, Deputy McEntee, but I have also been feeding into it.

Work is ongoing on the provision of paid domestic violence leave and benefit recognising that poverty is often one of the main barriers preventing someone from fleeing a situation of domestic violence. It would be very beneficial to provide some kind of paid leave so that people can escape these situations.

Returning to the core of the Chairman's question, I want to see continued increase in current expenditure. I will continue to engage with the sector. I have met many of the groups since I became Minister. I have met representatives of Safe Ireland, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and others on a number of occasions. I will continue my engagement on those points.

Regarding ECCE, we have seen that AIM has been an incredibly successful programme. That is why we have been able to allocate an additional €3.6 million this year to broaden it. After three years of AIM being operational, we will carry out a root-and-branch review of it. Certainly, the sense is that it has been an extremely successful programme. Obviously, it provides specific benefits to a wide range of children and allows them to access the ECCE programme. I would love to be able to provide supports for children also accessing early learning and care outside the ECCE format. I would like to look at that. We want AIM to continue to grow, which is why we have provided additional funding to it this year.

The issue of an additional third ECCE year for children is a difficult one. We have engaged very extensively with the National Disability Authority, NDA, on the wider question of the early age exception. The NDA has always been very clear in its official guidance to us that children leaving childcare settings and going into the primary setting should do so with their own age group. Its position is that unless there are very exceptional circumstances, that transition should go with the year group and we all know the importance of those transitions. That has not changed in light of Covid. We are not considering a large-scale provision of a third year of ECCE at this point.

In the next two weeks, I will chair a meeting of the steering committee of the national strategy for women and girls. That has been extremely important in influencing Government policy. We recently published the research paper on period poverty, which is very significant. That has at least been able to provide a context for a discussion on the issue of period poverty and the Seanad is addressing a number of Bills relating to the provision of period products. I recently issued a directive to all direct provision centres requiring them to provide free period products to everybody in direct provision. That is just one example of the success of the national strategy for women and girls. During this year we will review that strategy and plan to introduce a successor strategy focusing on many of the areas it highlighted, including the leadership role of women in politics, and other areas of business and society. We will look to continue the progress that has been made so far.

Have I covered all the Chairman's points?