David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The grants for trade unions, heads C4 and C6. What did the unions get, and is there any consideration of giving grants to, say, chambers of commerce on the other side, which are also very often under pressure and could do with a bit of assistance?

Can the Minister give me any indication as to whether any progress is being made under the casual and occasional trading licence legislation? There was public consultation in August 2018 under the Casual Trading Act 1995 and the Occasional Trading Act 1979 but there has been no movement since, even though we were led to believe there would be. These are small traders or casual traders or occasional traders and there are a lot of anomalies there and uncertainty about their rights and their situation. This legislation has been promised for quite a while. I am wondering whether there is any intention to move it on.

I am glad to see that Balance for Better Business is going well. I was involved in setting that up when I was in the Department of Justice and it is going quite well.

We are at virtually full employment, and the LEOs are doing fantastic work in that regard. Are LEOs being resourced or asked to focus on people with disabilities getting into employment? We had a report here earlier that stated that we are probably laggards in Europe with respect to people with disabilities at work, so I ask the Minister to focus on that. Maybe the LEOs are in a particular place to assist with that and maybe some funding should be made available for that. I refer also to people from disadvantaged backgrounds, migrants and people from the Traveller community. They also need that extra bit of assistance in getting support, so the Minister might focus on that.

In the past, I have mentioned - and our committee has done some work with Canada - the possible suggestion to open up an Ireland House office in Calgary. I know that a lot of good work is going on in Vancouver and on the other side of the country, the eastern side, but it is a vast country. Calgary is very important and, as I have said previously here, it might be useful to do that.

There is so much going on in the Department, so much excellent work, but those are just some of the niche issues on which I wanted to focus.