Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)

The Minister and I know they are covered, but my question is on whether they are funded. The Minister of State says he has had extensive engagement, and I absolutely do not doubt that for a moment. I would say his engagement was exceedingly extensive; however, as a result of his engagement, have his Department and other Departments confirmed that the agencies they fund to deliver services will be in a position to meet their obligations to all of their workers without having to cut back on services or wages? If they have not been given extra money and do not have the capacity to generate money, we are back to where we were at the time the Minister’s party crashed the economy, when it gave the instruction to people that they did not necessarily have to cut pay but had to cut back. The Government told them not to cut services, so in the end they did cut pay.

We can imagine that people who were burned before are very anxious to know if they are going to be in a capacity to join the scheme. The employers are anxious to know if they are going to be funded. My fear is that they are not funded at the moment and that we are going to end up in a situation where some people may be excluded or some agencies may have to make decisions that we do not want them to have to make.

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