Results 1-20 of 10,349 for speaker:Roderic O'Gorman

Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2024: Second Stage (19 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I move "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has the appropriate enforcement powers to address serious non-compliance with regulations for early years services and to ensure that parents have access to information in relation to the quality of those services. The intention is not to increase enforcement...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. From his engagement and that of other Deputies from Cork I am well aware of the issues facing Northside Community Enterprise and of the funding that is required to support the reopening of the Before 5 Family Centre in Churchfield. The centre is in an area of undersupply and of high need for childcare places. The ambition of Northside Community...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I do not accept the Deputy's assertion that it is moving at a snail's pace. We are looking to create a new funding stream that will deal with situations like this where there is an existing service that is using a building that is no longer fit for purpose and requires significant capital support. That requires my Department to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: When I was in Cork I sought the meeting with Northside Community Enterprise in order to be able to discuss the need for particular support to get this service reopened. I was able to see the amazing work it has done in other services and understand the particular ethos behind the organisation as a community organisation. This is something we in the Department want to support. I outlined...

International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Motion (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Acting Chair. I welcome the proposal by the Minister for Justice, and I and my Department look forward to working with her and across Government on its implementation. Ireland, like many other European countries, is experiencing a significant increase in the number of people seeking international protection. The arrival numbers remain significantly elevated. Up to mid-June...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: Right now, where a service is not involved in the core funding model my Department does not have a mechanism to influence how much it charges. If the service is in the NCS the Department provides a significant subsidy to parents, which is growing this year - and very significantly in September - and which will lessen the costs. However, right now the Department does not have a mechanism if...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Children in Care (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: Foster care is the preferred method of care for children in care who cannot live with their families of origin. As we know, foster care provides a safe, secure and stable home environment for some of our most vulnerable children. Tusla's assessment of any foster carer must consider the foster carer's expected availability to meet and support the needs of the child who has come into his or...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Children in Care (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Deputy for keeping the spotlight on this issue because it is so important that we support foster carers. I have met IFCA and Movement for Change in Foster Care and other organisations representing foster carers regularly. In particular, I met them after, not the 2024 budget but the 2023 budget, and I said I would work with them to deal with the allowance which was a key issue...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Children in Care (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: When I met IFCA and Movement for Change in Foster Care we spoke about five broad areas where they felt the State needed to be doing more. These were allowances - which the Deputy has discussed already; travel expenses - which I am working on with Tusla; and additional concrete supports particularly in terms of therapies and we now have therapist groups available to foster carers from which...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Core funding has been in operation since 15 September 2022 and has achieved significant successes in terms of the high level of participation we are seeing. Right now, 4,632 services nationwide are eligible to partake in the core funding scheme. Of those, 4,369 are partner services, meaning 267 services have not signed up to core funding. We...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: There were a couple of questions there. We have some information about black spots, mainly through the city and county childcare committees. We have just set up a new unit in our Department, a bit like the forward planning unit in the Department of Education, very much designed around a better understanding of where pressure spots are, and we are feeding that information into local...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: International Protection (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: As the Deputy knows, on 27 March 2024, the Government agreed a new comprehensive accommodation strategy, CAS, for international protection applicants. This has a twofold aim. The immediate aim is to deal with the situation where we are not able to offer accommodation to everybody right now, and a significant number of people were sleeping rough on our streets. The secondary aim, as the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: International Protection (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I agree with much of what the Deputy said. We have to remember we are rebuilding our international protection system in real time. For years we were not getting anywhere close to the European average for international protection applicants. Since 2022 we have been getting the average, but our system was not built for those numbers. We are having to rebuild the processing system. The...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: International Protection (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: The comprehensive accommodation strategy is to run until 2028. The vision set out in my answer of 13,000 beds and the various elements is something we wish to achieve by 2028. We have already taken significant steps in the use of State land. That has been a huge change. There is the site at Crooksling, County Dublin, and at Trudder, County Wicklow, where we are now accommodating a...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: Since 2020, there has been a significant increase in the number of stand-alone school-age childcare services registered with Tusla, with 546 more services now on the Tusla register. At the end of Q1 2024, there was a total of 2,546 registered school-age services. A large number of early learning and childcare services also offer school-age childcare places in addition to places for younger...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: In September 2022, I launched Together for Better, the new funding model for early learning and childcare. This new funding model supports the delivery of early learning and childcare for the public good, for affordability, accessibility and quality for children and families as well as sustainability for providers. Through Together for Better, my Department provides a number of schemes...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: My Department is progressing a range of actions to ensure the supply of early learning and childcare is aligned with demand, with work in this area led by a new Supply Management Unit that I established earlier this year. A key part of the Supply Management Unit’s remit is to develop a planning function for monitoring, analysing and forecasting of the supply and demand - akin to the...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: Reform of the early learning and childcare sector is a commitment in the Programme for Government, bringing together the best of community and private provision, and the development of a new funding model, to achieve Government's objectives of affordable, accessible and high-quality services. An Expert Group was established in September 2019 to develop this funding model. Under their...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: Capital funding through the Building Blocks Capacity Grant Scheme consists of two strands of funding over 2024 and 2025. The deadline for the first strand, the Building Blocks Expansion Scheme, has now closed. Under this strand, capital funding for projects valued at between €50,000 and €100,000 is being provided for the renovation or reconfiguration of existing services to...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (18 Jun 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: Ensuring access to quality, affordable early learning and childcare is a key priority for Government. Various data sources provide evidence that the supply of early learning and childcare is increasing. Sector profile data shows an increase in enrolments nationally of 8% between 2022 and 2023 with a similar increase in enrolments in Kildare for the same period. Data from Core Funding...