Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I was not physically present for them but I was listening on my headphones. The witnesses might forgive me, therefore, if I am unable to identify speakers.

We are hearing very clear messages repeatedly. As Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned, there is a burden with paperwork and we have heard about this from community and voluntary sectors. There is repetition of effort across different companies and it does not seem to make much sense to me. We have heard about pay and conditions and I accept what Mr. Glynn has said. I am aware it is subject to ongoing discussions. There is also the matter of flexibility.

Deputy Ó Cuív has a point in referring to the fact that we almost have two things happening here. Those are the activation piece, or trying to get people into a labour market economy, and the social economy piece. One of the presentations referenced the value of the social economy, which is being recognised increasingly at an EU level as well. We have people we want to get into a traditional workforce and then there are people who we should acknowledge may always work within the social economy. That may be the correct route. Mr. Kearney said that maybe if we muddied the waters between those areas, we would create a capacity issue, and there may be a need to differentiated.

Deputy Ó Cuív probably knows more about what goes on during budget negotiations than anybody else in the room. It is true to say that health savings arise from these processes. I would come at this from an active transport perspective as well. Both of those elements will pay for themselves many times over in health budget savings than what may be extracted; that is not how Departments negotiate when it comes to budget time. It is not how I understand it works.