Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With my other hat on, we are absolutely focused on those child poverty figures. I am not happy with them. We will be bringing forward a number of initiatives in this year's budget. The Deputy touched on something we need to do a lot more work on, namely, rural poverty, in particular, and hidden poverty. The area of transport is one the Deputy has identified. Under the current CLÁR initiative, we are supporting organisations to acquire vehicles. In the CLÁR 2 programme, which has just closed for applications, we will be looking at supporting organisations to get vehicles to provide rural transport, particularly in the education frame. We have done that over a number of iterations of that scheme. For those with special education needs and disabilities, transport in rural areas is particularly challenging for younger people and children. In this year's CLÁR 2 stream of funding, we will be looking at supporting organisations that are addressing that transport issue specifically.

There is also greater flexibility and greater potential for Local Link to provide services in this space. I will work with my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, to ensure that Local Link is focused in the best way possible, working with the local development companies. Local Link has a very strong working relationship with local development companies in this space. We can fill gaps there using the Local Link provision as well.

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