Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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As the Deputy will be aware, budget negotiations are confidential. However, as announced on Budget Day, I can confirm that I negotiated a substantial increase in funding for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration & Youth in 2024, in line with the parameters agreed by Government in the Medium Term Expenditure Strategy. This includes a significant increase in funding to ensure that the existing level of service (ELS) which is provided by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), across Disability Services, early learning and childcare and youth services and other programme areas will continue to be provided.

Government agreed a total Government Expenditure Ceiling of €96.6 billion for Budget 2024. Of this expenditure, an additional €434 million was allocated for ELS to my Department excluding Ukraine related spending due to its once off exceptional nature.

This allocation will mainly fund the costs arising from implementation of the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme, enhancement of person-centred supports and services in Disability Services, supporting the progressive rollout of the Action Plan for Disability Services and the Roadmap for Children’s Disability Services. It will also allow Tusla to continue to provide existing levels of care and support to children and families referred to Tusla for help and begin to address some of the increasing demand for Tusla services, in particular for complex residential care placements.

This ELS funding was agreed with the Department of Public Expenditure and NDP Delivery and Reform as part of the budgetary process.

There is further engagement currently ongoing as part of the 2024 Revised Estimates (REV) stage of the annual Estimates process.