Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and her officials to the committee and I commend her on for the €25 million basic income pilot, which would be a game changer in the arts. There are concerns in the community about what some call a de facto exclusion of artists with disabilities insofar as the scheme may put someone at risk of having their other supports cut. Can the Minister make some assurances on that? If not, can the scheme be made exempt to disability allowance, the blind pension, the medical card and so on in order that people will not risk their supports being cut?

I welcome the Minister’s comments on the night-time economy task force. It is good to see that a robust implementation structure has been agreed. Importantly, the flexibility is there to react to new ideas. That is positive. I commend the Minister on that. I have been struck by the struggles people are facing, as well as the streams of people who we see walking out of town late at night trying to flag down taxis. We have lost over 2,000 taxis from the industry since 2019. My colleague, Deputy O’Rourke, had a briefing in the audiovisual room at Leinster House yesterday, which called for the ten-year rule to be looked at. In speaking to the Minister as an environmentalist, I note that when walking out the main arteries of town, you see streams of people who are unable to flag taxis and often, there is only one person in those cabs. This is not a good use of resources. The report of the night-time economy task forces called for an increase and extension of eight new routes to be in operation for 24 hours in Dublin. There are currently three such Dublin Bus routes. We need to see policy change if we want people to change their habits and to view the bus as an option late at night. This is obviously the area of the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. It is a key recommendation in the night-time economy task force. I would welcome the Minister’s comment on the unavailability of taxis late at night. People will not go into the city centre if there is no way to get home.

I will add my voice to another issue because if we do not say it, it will not happen. The report of the Future of Media Commission must be published. We are getting fobbed off time and again by the Government and it has to be published. The Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill must now go through the Dáil without Deputies having access to that report, as has been the case for Senators as well.

My final request to the Minister is to consider in her budget allocations a ring-fenced allocation to RTÉ for the development of the RTÉ Player.