Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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I have a few questions. We now have a child poverty unit within the Department of an Taoiseach. If we are working to eliminate child poverty, I ask about the interaction between the Minister’s Department and it. Is it working? Is it duplication? Are we seeing new things come from that?

In his opening, the Minister mentioned the challenge of people enforcing their rights, vindicating their equality rights and the challenge of a lack of information and not necessarily knowing their rights. I see a key role in helping protect people to vindicate their equality rights, particularly in the workplace, in trade unions.

Is the Minister engaging with them as a key stakeholder? It is also worth mentioning that a key block to vindicating peoples' rights - equality rights or others - is legal costs. I appreciate the Minister is not responsible for them so I will not dig into that much further. However, I would certainly encourage the Minister to address the issue of legal costs and the lack of civil legal aid, with the Minister for Justice.

The committee has produced a very significant report on the national strategy on youth work and related services, which I know the Minister has read so I do not need to question him on it. However, we sought to highlight them as an important part of equality and anti-poverty strategies and the role that youth work plays. When are we likely to see the national youth work strategy being published?