Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To Deputy Tully, regarding the point she made about the working family payment and the one-parent family and the challenges she outlined that present when the youngest child reaches the age of seven, these are matters we consider in the context of the budget. We have taken several measures to help remove poverty traps and cliff edges. We have also tried to take a number of measures, including cost-of-living measures, specifically targeted at families most in need, including double payments, lump-sum payments, etc. I will raise the specific issue the Deputy mentioned, however, with the Minister for Social Protection for consideration by her in the context of the upcoming Estimates.

In reply to Deputy Ó Murchú, on the special education teaching allocations he raised for the schools in County Louth, I will ask the Minister for Education to look at them and come back to him. There is, as the Deputy said, an appeals process, but I take the point about the stress and worry that can cause for people. I agree with his broader point around the need for targeted interventions. I heard him speak about this in the House before in terms of community interventions that can make a real difference to people before situations become more challenging.

To Deputy O'Sullivan, I will speak directly to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, about the baby room shortages in Glanmire, the specific challenges faced by ECCE-only providers in rural communities and the need to consider that in the context of the funding model.

To Deputy Murnane O'Connor, I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, received money in the budget that she worked very hard for in terms of trying to support families who have to pay for assessments. I have discussed this with the Minister of State recently. I would hope we could see clarity shortly on how that scheme would work, because there are families depending on it, including the Deputy's constituents.

On the new childminding regulations, we have to remind ourselves what we are trying to do here. We are trying to get subsidies to parents who are using childminding, just as a person whose child is in a crèche gets them. It is unfair that subsidies are available in respect of children in crèches but not for those with childminders. That is the policy objective. To advance that policy objective, we need to have a degree of regulation to enable State funding. However, I also agree we cannot turn people's homes into crèches or measure sitting rooms in odd peculiar ways. We have to be flexible on this. The Minister gets the importance of this, so the draft regulations are indeed a draft. I assure the Deputy the concerns will be addressed, or I certainly hope they will be addressed, before we see final regulations.

In reply to Deputy Boyd Barrett who has given me some correspondence, we have spoken about the case of Amy and I will revert to him in that regard.

In reply to Deputy Murphy, that sounds like a very good project in Kingswood. The answer I would give is that the sports capital funding should be an avenue with the local authority. We will be making sports capital allocations, probably around October and certainly in the autumn of this year. Sports capital funding is largely annual now. There is a great deal of money in it - hundreds of millions of euro. I advise that that might be a route forward.

In response to Deputy Barry on childminding, the point I was making from my note was that €90 million has been allocated to the Department from 2023 to 2026 in regard to capital investment to increase capacity. In 2024, €18 million was made available to support existing services to increase their capacity. However, a further capital funding scheme will be launched later this year focused on larger extension projects for services also in place for one- to three-year-olds. I am happy to take a look at the specific case in Cork and to ask the Minister to engage directly with Deputy Barry.

In response to Deputy O'Callaghan in regard to Gaelcholáiste Reachrann in Donaghmede and the long time classes have spent in prefabs, we allocated quite a lot of additional capital to the Minister for Education. I will ask her what that means for Gaelcholáiste Reachrann and ask her to write to the Deputy.

In response to Deputy Carthy, specifically that very difficult situation for the young person he referenced and others, I will engage, as he asked me to, with the Minister for Health.

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