Results 341-360 of 3,246 for speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: -----it would have need to impossible to predict that. I am asking about what modelling we do based on population whereby we anticipate services rather than respond.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I asked that question because the next question is how we plan to respond. What is Tusla's policy position on State provision versus community and voluntary versus private provision? Is it a stated goal of Tusla to move towards public provision?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Were those special emergency arrangement, SEA, units?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have a response to a parliamentary question submitted by my colleague, Deputy Costello, on the number of residentials managed by Tusla or its predecessor agencies since 2013. In 2014, when Tusla was founded, the figure was 44. In 2023, the figure was 39.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: That shows me a direction of travel that is not in the correct one.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am looking at the non-pay expenditure for 2018 to 2020 in the briefing note prepared by the secretariat, which is very helpful to all of us. The expenditure, say, on foster and aftercare allowances, flatlined or looks pretty much dead flat. Office administration was in and around the same. There was a slight increase in expenditure on community and voluntary charitable organisations.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The expenditure that is going through the roof - the red line - is independent placement provision. I object even to the language of that because it obfuscates what we are actually talking about, which is private.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: A phrase that I found in the documentation, which I boked at quite honestly, is "private, for-profit sector providers". The idea of "for-profit" when it comes to some of our most vulnerable children sticks in my craw. It has been said that we have this objective to flip the ratio in terms of public and private provision but I am not seeing residential unit places coming. I have seen a...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have no doubt. I am not casting any aspersions on them but I just do not think the care of our most vulnerable children is an area where we should be applying profit over it.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I read the Proclamation as I pass through the foyer and the obligation we are supposed to have is to care for all the children of the State. On foster provision, during my teaching career I taught a number of foster children. I also met foster parents who do an unbelievable job. My God, they should be better supported because they do an incredible job. I have seen the wonderful work...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Foster care is the best outcome and best value for money. It does not matter what type of lens one applies to foster care, if we get more foster parents into the system and better support them then we will get better outcomes for children and for the State.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: What are we doing to provide the resources, and into public foster care placements, rather than private?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I will focus initially on residential care and fostering. I accept that the explosion in demand in the special emergency arrangements is probably unpredictable in the sense that we have seen enormous numbers of people arriving on out shores. It is saddening to think of a child travelling without a guardian and requiring that level of service and intervention. I accept that is broadly...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Tusla-Child and Family Agency (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: That is why I would much if we provided this care through the State.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I move amendment No. 121: In page 58, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following: “ “community garden” means an area of land made available to members of the community for collective gardening purposes for personal or local consumption of produce and is operated otherwise than with a view to making profit, to be prescribed in regulations as “community...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The law of the land, however, does not. It is completely silent on the definition of "community garden" in any legislation I can find. "Allotment" is well set out. "Community garden" is not. For that reason, I prepared a Private Members' Bill that sets out the definition of "community garden" and provides for a number of other measures, particularly around the obligations we could...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: As I understand it, that is the Cathaoirleach's amendment.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have not joined in on that. It is very simply where we are referring to allotments. The position regarding allotments is well set out in law and is well understood. It is to include, side by side with that, a definition of "community garden". In practice, very often these community spaces have an element of both happening together. There will be an area that is managed by a community...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Yes, I am withdrawing it on that basis.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (29 Feb 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I welcome the Minister of State's response. It makes common sense to include it. I have been doing this work with Community Gardens Ireland and we identified this lacuna in the law. It has been a barrier for community groups and a barrier in ensuring that local authorities provide really valuable services in all sorts of ways, including things like addressing climate change, reducing food...