David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests and thank them for their work. I take the opportunity to welcome SOLAS as well and comment briefly on the work it has been doing, which is quite impressive. The one criticism I have is that the organisation is hiding its light under a bushel and many people do not know what it does. I think SOLAS is responsible for local training initiatives, LTIs, across the country. I have come across some of the work being done in those initiatives and have been hugely impressed. This is slightly off-topic so I hope the Chair will give me forbearance. The LTIs are making an impact on marginalised young people in particular and it is really impressive. I have heard some reports recently to the effect that the initiatives are being reviewed or revised and might be downgraded in some way. I hope that is not true. If anything, the staff in those centres should be given contracts whereby they have certainty of tenure and promotion and the contracts do not just go from year to year so the staff can have a career pathway, because the work they do is so challenging. I apologise to everyone else for saying that but I wanted to take the opportunity.

Mr. Egan said that the CLRG "considered but did not recommend what is proposed in Section 2 of the Bill – the expansion of the class of preferential payments". I ask him to expand on why the group did not recommend that.