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

I always want to grow the support we give to the youth sector. I was delighted to give it an additional €5 million this year. I think it had been looking for €4.7 million so we were able to go a bit beyond what the sector wanted. I want to be able to continue to support it on its current spending. We also gave additional capital supports in terms of IT grants and small Covid grants to many youth services across the country. One grant was €100, which is very small but in the context of these organisations, which are used to making a little go a long way, I know it was really appreciated when we did that last year. The additional €5 million will provide six new Your Place Your Space, UBU, services across the country. Those six have already been identified. There are an additional two new UBU services - these are the services targeted at areas of disadvantage - and they will be allocated later on this year. There will be a tendering process. There will be six services to meet existing gaps and two brand new services. Having eight new services in a year is very significant and we are delighted to be able to do that. I know the sector is under pressure at the moment and that many organisations have lost fundraising opportunities or subscriptions but the Government is providing significant additional support this year and I hope to be able to continue to do that. I continue to engage very closely with the sector and provide support any way I can.

In respect of direct provision, under the new scheme outlined in my White Paper, people in phase two who are living independently will be able to avail of an international protection support payment, which will be linked to the social welfare payment. That will be significant if they are living independently but not yet working. Obviously, we want to support them in gaining access to work and there will be significant changes in that respect. We made it clear that it will take a number of years to move to this new system. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and I made a significant announcement two weeks ago regarding removing the financial costs of accessing higher and further education so the €3,600 cost to enter a post-leaving certificate course will be removed. This will be particularly significant because for many people, that might be more accessible or appealing than a full third-level course and might be more immediately beneficial in terms of increasing labour market attractiveness. This is a very significant measure that removes a very significant barrier in the way of those in the international protection process upskilling themselves while they are waiting for a decision. This is something I was delighted to be able to do in conjunction with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in addition to what I said about period poverty and access to driver licences and bank accounts. There is a range of short, medium and long-term actions we must continue to work on in this area.

In terms of restorative recognition, there is no allocation for the payments as yet. This must be subject to a Government decision. I hope to bring a memorandum to Cabinet later in the spring with regard to that following the result of the interdepartmental group process. This process is going well. It has this public engagement process about which I spoke a few moments ago. The interdepartmental group involves civil servants hearing and getting written submissions from survivors - both individuals and groups - and gaining an understanding of what they see as important. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, has agreed to provide some information to the interdepartmental group in terms of what did and did not work well with previous redress schemes and in particular, how we can ensure that human rights concepts are central to the redress scheme being designed. I am really grateful to IHREC for its involvement. It will draw up a paper and present to the interdepartmental group as well.

I will, obviously, then be engaging with religious congregations about their potential contributions to this scheme. That is important. The bespoke medical cad will also be a part of those considerations.

The Deputy also mentioned the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, for early years childcare professions and those who were not kept on by their employers. That did spike in January and it was disappointing to see that because we put significant supports in place through the employment wage subsidy scheme. The enhanced rate available in January was meeting 80% of wage costs of the average childcare provider. I do not see any need for childcare providers to have to go onto PUP. That number has decreased and although I do not have the up-to-date figures, I can provide them to the Deputy, if necessary.

As the Deputy knows, childcare is reopening on a phased basis and the ECCE scheme is now fully open. It will close for a couple of weeks over Easter and early learning and school-aged childcare will kick back in from 29 April. It will probably be after Easter when the entire sector is reopened and that will probably be our best chance to reassess needs and longer-term losses.

I know there was an article in some newspapers approximately two weeks ago that discussed the risks of extensive closures of services. From my engagement with parents and the advisory council that talks to its providers, my sense is that parents want their childcare services back and will continue to use them. The Deputy alluded to the areas in which they are located and that, in the medium to long term, there may be some changes in that area. Even if we see a much greater return to remote or flexible working, which we probably will, I believe that the vast majority of parents who currently avail of childcare, be it ECCE, wider services or school-aged childcare, will continue to want to do so. We will continue to support that sector in what might be an evolving situation. We will continue to offer supports to the sector.

The Deputy also mentioned unaccompanied minors. Unfortunately, level 5 has meant that there have been major restrictions on our ability to engage in terms of unaccompanied minors or the wider Irish refugee protection programme, IRPP. We brought over a group of 165 Syrian refugees from camps around Beirut in Lebanon in November. I met them at a hotel in Santry after they had done their quarantine. It was an amazing experience to meet all those people, particularly the children, all of whom were translating for their parents and who were excited about starting life in Ireland. That was the most recent consignment of refugees who arrived under the IRPP.

Next week, we hope to send a group from Tusla and the Garda to Greece to begin the process of bringing 14 unaccompanied minors to Ireland. As the Deputy knows, when the fire in Moria took place, we only had the capacity to bring over an additional four refugees because of budgetary issues. We secured additional funding so that we now have capacity to bring over 14 refugees, who have been identified. There was a significant issue on the EU side. The EU changed the manner in which it was deciding who could qualify as an unaccompanied minor to be taken by member states. That caused a delay in October and November and, when the higher levels of lockdown took place, journey were not taking place. Tusla officials will be going over to Greece in the next week to, we hope, bring over 14 identified unaccompanied minors. We have put in place a range of supports in terms of private residences. We are also looking at developing a new fostering scheme specifically for families fostering unaccompanied minors. These children are usually a good bit older than other children entering foster care. We will be looking to bring over more children. We have an existing commitment to take 28 children and we need to meet that. We are hoping to bring over 14 unaccompanied minors in the near future but we now have the funding to meet that full commitment of 28.

It was great to get €5 million in this area but it does not go a long way. We are putting in place an extensive range of supports for these young people, as is appropriate and correct. It is money well spent but it is costly and that is why €5 million gives us provision for a number of young people in the 20s or 30s.