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

The Deputy asked a good few questions there. If he has to ask them a second time, I will come back in in case I have missed some of them. He asked, first of all, about the contract employment services. Those contracts are in place. We have a reduced level. We have our Intreo partners and the long-term jobseekers. They look after about 40,000 in all. We need that flexibility because you never know when people will be made redundant. We want to be able to ramp up the supports if necessary to help people get back to work. That is what it is all about. It is about supporting, re-skilling and upskilling them. Unfortunately, we heard about a few different job losses recently. That is when we want to kick in very quickly to help people take the necessary steps to get back into alternative employment. The service is there and it is always running in case it is needed. That is an important thing that we have to do. Thankfully, the figures are very low at the minute, but it is important that when it is needed, we can ramp it up quickly.

The Deputy mentioned people with disabilities. Ireland is behind the EU average for employment rates for people with disabilities. I have worked to enhance the supports we have in my Department, whether it is the employability programme, the reasonable accommodation fund, the workability or the wage subsidy scheme for people with disabilities. We do need to do more work with people and make them aware of these supports. We have had a number of campaigns. I will continue to highlight to employers that there is a fund available for workplace adaptation and encourage more people with disabilities to come to look for employment. The labour market is tight and I think it is a great opportunity for employers to take people with disabilities into their workplace. We will continue to work on that. We want to help people who want to work. We are not forcing anybody to do anything, by the way. It is about helping people. I will leave it at that.

The amounts appear large for the recoveries on EWSS and TWSS. Expenditure on these schemes was in the billions. We recover that through Revenue. We have been in contact with Revenue about the projected recoveries in future years. The Deputy can appreciate that massive money was paid out during the pandemic on all of these supports. There is data coming in and if people were overpaid, we are obviously looking for the money back.

The Deputy also mentioned the hot school meals programme. I love the hot school meals; I think it is a great programme. I might as well tell the members that I was visiting a primary school recently and there they were heating up the dinners. I asked the children in sixth class if they like the hot school meals, and every hand went up. It is my ambition that there will be a hot school meal in primary school for any child born this year by the time they are going to school. We are moving the programme on and ramping it up as quickly as we can. It is a great leveller, because the children all sit down and get the chance to get a hot meal. The effect on their educational attainment, following that staple meal in the middle of the day, is transformative. There is no doubt about it. In terms of whether we can collate the data and feed it into anti-poverty measures, the only problem with it is that poverty is measured on income. It is not measured on the ancillary supports that we can give people. It has a qualitative impact. I think it should be included, to be honest, because it makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference to the parents who are trying to put lunches together that are never eaten or are returned. At the same time, for those who do not have a proper diet, it is massive. I am very committed to the hot school meals programme and I want to keep ramping it up as quickly as we can.

Is there anything else I have to cover?