Results 5,081-5,100 of 11,893 for speaker:Roderic O'Gorman

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: The design of the scheme was based on the idea of a generalised payment to avoid survivors having to prove individualised experiences such as forced participation in a vaccine trial. It is explicitly to avoid the need to go towards a testimony-based approach that the generalised payment based on the length of time spent in one of these institutions was adopted.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: I do not think it did. The DSS was established a number of years ago and so it is an organisation that exists. Obviously, it has not been undertaking the very significant range of tasks set out for it within the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act. It will now be undertaking the appointment of decision supporters. Where complaints are made, it will be looking at those complaints. Its...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: The Deputy asked about recruitment, specifically on the disability side of things. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I are looking forward to the final transfer of responsibility for the HSE's community-based disability services on 1 March. I met the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and officials to discuss that just prior to this meeting. Obviously, there are many issues...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: That is very good. I am glad it has been seen to deliver in Carlow. In terms of the targeted stream for the disadvantaged, that is something my Department is very clear it wants to advance. That is not provided for in this year's Estimate so it is something we will look to bring forward in budget 2024. There is a piece of work being undertaken by my Department to ascertain how exactly...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: My understanding from the interdepartmental group report, which came out in mid-2021, and my recollection, is that the cost of making provision for payments at a similar rate to people who were in institutions for less than six months as a child would have been an additional €300 million. That would have brought the overall cost of the scheme to €1.1 billion. If an enhanced...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: As the Deputy knows, the legislation on which the institutional payment scheme will be based is working its way through the Dáil at the moment and subsequently will have to go through the Seanad. When my Department engaged with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform during our work on budget 2023, it indicated that the costings it would...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: There will. We are working as quickly as possible to pass the legislation and undertake the administrative work to support the scheme. Obviously the legislation needs to be passed to support the scheme but we are working to get that done.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: Yes, they can.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: Additional staff will be necessary within the Department to oversee the scheme. An IT infrastructure will have to be created to support the application process. We will undertake an information campaign to make people aware of their rights. As the Deputy knows, we undertook a significant information campaign on foot of the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022. It has come up in...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: We continue to engage with the religious institutions. As Deputy Cairns knows, I met them and made the point that it is important they make a substantial contribution to the overall scheme. These engagements are ongoing. I have always been very clear that I did not want the set-up of the scheme to be contingent or dependent on the conclusion of those negotiations. The scheme needs to be...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: I am working on passing legislation based on a specific Government decision. Obviously, legislation can be changed subsequently. Schemes can be changed subsequently if a decision is made. I do not want to speculate on where we are with the process right now.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: The Adoption Authority of Ireland and Tusla have been provided with additional resources to increase the levels of staff and increase their systems, particularly IT, to be able to undertake their work under the birth information and tracing legislation. They are provided for under these specific heads. They are not coming from the mother and baby institution heads that we have already...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: With regard to Adoption Authority of Ireland's pay allocation, which is the key element, its pay increased by €1.1 million between 2022 and 2023. There was a small decrease, to which Deputy Cairns referred, in terms of its overall allocation. The main reason for this is that the big information campaign driven by Adoption Authority of Ireland which took place last year is not being...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: I would like to return briefly to the point on birth information and tracing legislation. I have a quarterly meeting with Tusla. I stressed to the outgoing chief executive and the interim chief executive the importance I place on Tusla fulfilling the obligations it has to rapidly meet people's request for information and the importance of the organisation doing all it can. We have provided...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: My understanding is that €121 million was the cost of bringing the subsidy from 50 cent up to €1.21.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: We do not have that quite yet. We will have it later in the year because we also have to take account of the core funding and new funding. Not only have we made the NCS much bigger, we have obviously brought in core funding by brand new enlarged funding as well. We will provide a calculation on that and maybe discuss it later in the year.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: There is a €9 million capital allocation for the early years sector for 2023.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: I will flag that the grant scheme was advertised in the latter part of last year and the deadline has closed for that.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: It has been very heavily subscribed. The €9 million is the improvement grant. Services had until mid-December to apply for it and the outcome for that will be provided in early March. Services will know in early March if they were successful in that regard. We will be running another capital scheme in the middle of this year for claiming next year in 2024. That will be looking...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised) (8 Feb 2023)

Roderic O'Gorman: The Ministers, Deputies McEntee and Harris, are obviously working on the creation of this new agency, which will take over the functions Tusla currently has in terms of funding for refuges and services around the country. We used to be politically responsible for Tusla doing that. The political responsibility for that has now gone to the Department of Justice. Once established, the...