Results 1-20 of 496 for in 'Dáil debates' speaker:Joe O'Brien

Ceisteanna Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (9 May 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I will take that question. That should not be the case. We want to incentivise people to get onto CE schemes. We have lots of vacancies and we are particularly interested in those with disabilities because a high rate of people with disabilities are unemployed. We have taken measures under the CE schemes to try to encourage people on disability allowance to take up the scheme. I would be...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (9 May 2024)

Joe O'Brien: My Department's community services programme supports more than 430 community-based organisations to provide local services through a social enterprise model with an annual co-funding contribution towards each full-time equivalent position being supported and, where warranted, towards the cost of employing a manager. In March 2023, funding of €1 million was made available for a call...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (9 May 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I acknowledge the Deputy's ongoing advocacy for Muirhevnamore community centre. He raises it with me regularly. We supply funding for it to support a manager and three full-time equivalents, so that is an annual contribution of €114,000 supplied to Muirhevnamore community centre. I again summarise that, over the past four years, there has been a list of financial pressures on the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (9 May 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I acknowledge and take the opportunity to thank all of those involved in CSP organisations. The past couple of years have been particularly challenging, and they have all stepped up to the plate. If the Deputy sends me more detail on the Blackrock situation, we can look into it. I do not know if appeal options were exhausted. To outline what we have been doing in terms of boosting CSP...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (30 Apr 2024)

Joe O'Brien: My Department administers a number of funding streams addressing integration by way of annual and multi-annual grants. I have been working to maximise these funds to support excellent work and proposed work across communities in every corner of Ireland, to help migrants to settle in. Despite recent negative events, this remains the more dominant response of Irish communities to new...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (30 Apr 2024)

Joe O'Brien: The Deputy makes a number of good points. With smaller funds, such as the community integration fund, we keep the administration level down as much as possible because we want local groups like that to be able to apply for it, so we do our best to keep it as simple as possible. However, with higher amounts of money, when you are talking about hundreds of thousands of euro, a higher level of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (30 Apr 2024)

Joe O'Brien: We are investing in infrastructure but in people as well. I want to acknowledge the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman’s contribution in this area too. We are developing, under his guidance, local authority integration teams. This bulks up the capacity of local authorities across the country to have a very particular focus on migrant integration. My understanding is that 75% of those...

Civil Registration (Electronic Registration) Bill 2024: Second Stage (25 Apr 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I thank the Deputies who contributed to the discussion this afternoon. I appreciate the support of Deputies across the board for progressing the measures contained in this Bill, which will have a positive impact on the interactions that citizens have with the State civil registration service and will greatly assist in the modernisation of the service. The introduction of online registration...

Civil Registration (Electronic Registration) Bill 2024: Referral to Select Committee (25 Apr 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I move: That the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands, pursuant to Standing Orders 95(3)(a) and 181(1).

Civil Registration (Electronic Registration) Bill 2024: Second Stage (25 Apr 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce this important Bill, which will improve and update our civil registration legislation and, in particular, allow parents and bereaved families the opportunity to register a birth, death or stillborn online, update the criteria for stillbirths and provide timely notification of deaths to the...

Accommodation for International Protection Applicants: Motion [Private Members] (21 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: Thank you, Ceann Comhairle, for your intervention and your comments. Since January, approximately 2,400 beds have been brought into use for those seeking accommodation by the international protection accommodation services. That said, week in, week out, we are opening new accommodation centres in communities across the country. Thankfully, by and large, they go unremarked upon because,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Transport Costs (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: I point out that the Local Link services have accelerated in their expansion and reach, in particular over the past couple of years. Figures from the Department of Transport show that numbers taking Local Link services have shot up by more than 360% between 2020 and 2023. It was a particular commitment in the programme for Government that we would triple the use of Local Link. I was part...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Legislative Process (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: Our charity sector is an important and valued part of Irish society, playing an integral role in the provision of services to our communities. With over 11,500 charities on the charities register, the work of the Charities Regulator is also vitally important. The Charities (Amendment) Bill 2023 was published on 22 December 2023, and concluded Second Stage of the legislative process on 25...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Transport Costs (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: As the Deputy will be aware, the Department of Transport is responsible for rural transport policy and programmes and the National Transport Authority has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally and for the scheduling of these services. Notwithstanding this, I acknowledge the vital importance of transport services for rural...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: We are using a couple of mechanisms to try to push that and expand that approach across government. In his question, the Deputy proposes the convening of a working group. In many respects that working groups already exists. We have a cross-sectoral group tasked with implementing the five-year strategy. It includes officials from quite a few Departments, including the Departments of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: There are a few strands to Deputy Ó Murchú's question.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: In terms of other Departments, particularly in the case of the section 39 organisations the Deputy mentioned, this comes down to service level agreements. I point to a document that was agreed by the Government in the year before last. It is the shared values and principles document. It encourages Departments to engage more with community and voluntary organisations that we are dependent...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: The Government's five-year strategy to support the community and voluntary sector, Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities, was published in 2019. This is a whole-of-government strategy led by my Department and it is implemented collaboratively with the sector through the cross-sectoral group on local and community development. This strategy reaffirms the Government's commitment to...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Community Development Projects (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: Since the Deputy specifically raised the community recognition fund, I will try to address the particular point he made. This was a €50 million announcement from last year. Each local authority was given an allocation based specifically on the number of new arrivals they had. After that a process ensued in each local authority area whereby the local authority was obliged to engage...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Community Development Projects (5 Mar 2024)

Joe O'Brien: We have to trust in the local authorities' decision-making processes as well to some extent, but at the same time we look at how they were done and we can learn from this round for future plans. I would point to a couple of things that we have been doing and that are particularly dedicated and pointed at particularly disadvantaged communities, namely the empowering communities programme that...