Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Okay. That is my first question because the Minister said the transfer will happen in the next number of weeks but before we know it, December will be upon us. We need greater certainty on that matter. The National Disability Authority will be coming under the Minister's ambit but where is the demarcation between children and adults in that? This issue was raised earlier in the context of the work programme of this committee. Where is the demarcation between children and adults? Will the Department be dealing with adults too?

The Minister spoke about childcare. Very serious issues arose in the provision of childcare services during Covid-19. Some of us were understandably angry and we were reflecting the anger of our constituents. It is only fair to acknowledge that the Minister and his departmental officials have done their level best to work through a lot of the issues, notwithstanding some bigger philosophical issues around the rights of workers within that sector and its funding.

We will get to all those in due course.I want to pin the Minister down on what the budget line will look like after the new responsibilities come through. That is the first theme.

Second, I seek assurance on whether the Estimates will lead to more social workers or an assurance that no persons who are front-line workers will be deployed to contact tracing and testing if it results in the loss of service to a child. There are 26,000 children waiting on occupational therapy here. That figure is from a response to a parliamentary question I put to the Minister for Health. It is unconscionable that children would still be waiting for services and the lists are getting longer in a whole range of areas. I want the Minister to succeed in his role and for his Department to be successful but the evidence suggests we are going slightly backwards because of Covid. While the Department will be bigger and have a larger budget, it looks as though front-line services are being retrenched to a degree which is having an effect on families. I think we are all feeling that as public representatives. I will be happy to support the Minister in any efforts to stem that tide.

A previous meeting of this committee considered the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2019, which dealt with guardians ad litem. It went to ground, having reached Committee Stage. It has disappeared into the ether. I do not want to see the ten proposed Bills which come under the ambit of the committee to be put on the never-never. I refer to Bills like the parental leave and benefit Bill, the adoptive benefit Bill and the assisted decision-making (capacity) Bill, many of which have being doing the rounds for some time. If some energy is given to these Bills it will have a tremendous impact. I am not assured by headings such as "revised heads of Bill in preparation of preparatory work underway" in relation to the Child Care (Amendment) Bill, for instance. The committee had come a long way on this and invested a lot of time.