Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his questions. I will give him the figures for the Ukrainians. As of 7 November, PPS numbers had been issued to 62,741 people from Ukraine. Income supports are being paid in respect of 45,817 people including 2,171 adult dependants and 15,194 child dependants. Child benefit is now also being paid in respect of 16,000 children and the total social protection expenditure is €182 million. As of 1 November, 10,590 people were employed. Many of the Ukrainians are mothers and children. It is difficult for them to take up employment. They certainly have the support of our job activation measures and the public employment services. We are working with them and we are doing everything to help them get into work. However, the biggest barrier for them is generally language. Many language courses are being rolled out through ETBs and other groups coming together to provide that service. I know of a social enterprise in Monaghan that is introducing language supports and training for Ukrainians.

Schools need to come forward for the school meals programme. I have put in a budget line for them. I am absolutely committed to the school meals programme. I have visited schools and I have seen how beneficial the hot meal in the middle of the day is for children. It is up to the schools to apply and schools then need to decide what they are capable of offering. The money is there and perhaps the demand was not quite as high as we expected.

Our employment services continue. There is underspend in that area this year because of the tight labour market and there are many jobs available out there. We have the public employment services in place so that we can ramp them up very quickly if we need to. The economy rebounded much quicker than had been initially expected. We had the structures and resources in place. We are investing in helping people to either reskill or upskill. We put considerable work into jobs fairs and were very successful in getting people matched with the right employer and right job. Again, because of the tight labour market we did not need as much. However, it is there and ready to ramp up if we need to do that.

The National Training Fund is in surplus at the moment. The Department of Social Protection draws money from that for the community employment scheme, the workplace employment programme and the training support grant. The numbers for these are also down. The National Training Fund, of course, is managed by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. I would be happy to check out any particular case the Deputy wants me to.