Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Regarding local creative youth partnerships, those are in the gift of the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, as it is led by her Department. A significant announcement about that initiative will be made on 13 May at the creative youth conference, in which the Taoiseach, the Minister for Education and I will participate along with panellists from the areas of education and business. We are very keen to expand these partnerships and I have engaged with the Minister for Education in that regard. As the Chair said, the ETBs have been brilliant at targeting the most disadvantaged young people, and the Deputy knows this from her previous work.

Regarding the basic income, I express my thanks to the committee for its support of the proposal. I welcome the committee's support for this initiative. I reiterate that I am working with colleagues to progress the appraisal of this recommendation. I am very supportive of it. I have indicated to the oversight group that the number one priority is determining how this can be done. The Ministers from the relevant Department, whose officials sit on that oversight group, are key in this regard. I confirm those Ministers are supportive of this proposal being examined. That is very positive. I am strongly advocating for a basic income. It would be a game changer for the arts, so it came as no surprise to me that this proposal was being sought as the number one recommendation.

Moving to the tourism oversight group, it is not a representative group. It is there to examine the implementation of the recommendations. What I said was that the restaurant and pub sector had its voice on the tourism and hospitality forum, which the Tánaiste and I set up in the autumn of last year. We have another meeting in May. However, all those relevant sectors which the Chair mentioned are on that tourism and hospitality forum.