Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I also acknowledge the work of the PPNs, which were initially established about ten years ago. They are independent bodies that operate in every local authority area. Their function is to make the connection between local policy development and local community and voluntary environmental bodies as well. My Department funds the PPN office in every local authority area. Because they are relatively new, we underwent a structural review recently and we have just completed the implementation plan on that. There were issues with how PPNs functioned in terms of their relationships with local authorities and pay issues arose in the review as well. We have the implementation plan and we will publish it very soon. I have received requests from individual PPNs for salary and wage increases. We will not be able to do that across all PPNs in the budget, given all the asks I have received. I am endeavouring to give them an increase in the budget but I cannot confirm the scale of it.

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