Vol. 1017 No. 4
113. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his attention has been drawn to the Better Outcomes Brighter Futures, National Advisory Council for Children and Young People paper; the actions he has taken to develop a national action plan to address child poverty as part of the next national policy framework; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5319/22]
What actions does the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth plan to take to implement the key recommendations from the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures paper from the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People? What steps will be taken to develop a national action plan to address child poverty as part of the next national policy framework?
I am very much aware of the National Advisory Council for Children and Young People's position paper on child poverty, which I published on my Department's website last week, along with the final Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, BOBF, annual report and updated indicator set. I had excellent engagement with the advisory council on the issue, and I met with them in December specifically on the child poverty paper.
The Deputy will be aware that it is the Department of Social Protection that leads on the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025, aimed at reducing poverty, including child poverty, and improving social inclusion. Last September I circulated the advisory council's paper to the BOBF consortium, and to the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, requesting them to give detailed consideration to the recommendations in the context of their budget 2022 discussions.
In respect of the council's recommendation to give voice to children experiencing poverty, my Department has published a request for tenders seeking methodological advice on hearing the voices of children who are in poverty. I have also met with the Ombudsman for Children regarding his A Better Normal report on child poverty and child homelessness. The Deputy will be aware that we have discussed that paper in this House.
In budget 2022, I secured additional funding within my Department to reduce childcare costs for parents and to reform the national childcare scheme to positively impact on children in socio-economically disadvantaged communities and, on services with high concentrations of families from socio-economically disadvantaged communities. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien's, officials and mine are in contact with regard to a new target for child poverty under the roadmap for social inclusion, and identifying a programme of work to address child poverty under the successor framework. I will meet with the Minister of State later this month on this issue.
I will shortly bring the draft EU child guarantee national action plan to Government. The plan addresses a number of critical matters: securing free access to early childhood education and care; education; and healthcare for children in need. As part of this process, and in developing the successor national policy framework to Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, I will continue to engage with my Cabinet colleagues to pursue a coherent agenda on child poverty. A key part of that will be the Better Outcomes, Better Futures successor strategy.
I thank the Minister. I wanted to ask this question so we could raise the issue of child poverty. Whenever we get the opportunity to highlight it, I believe that we should. The Minister will be aware that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has also been considering the issue of child poverty. Representatives of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul were recently before the committee to discuss access to food and people still being hungry. It struck me when one of the witnesses said that in 2022 we still have children going to school hungry and coming home hungry. Food poverty is a key part of this. I am aware that the school meals programme comes under the remit of the Department of Education and perhaps this is where things sometimes fall down in this Chamber, which can happen when matters come under different Departments. I wanted to raise the issue of food poverty in particular but also childcare. My time is ticking, however, so I will come back to the childcare question later.
It is always very important that we would address the issue of child poverty in this House. With regard to the specific elements of food poverty, the Deputy will be aware that in last year's budget and this year's, the free school meals programme was broadened. This is probably the most practical step we can take to provide immediate sustenance to young children and to support their education. Further to that, the Minister for Education has announced a broadening of the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, scheme, which again will provide greater supports for children in the most disadvantaged schools.
It is also worth noting that we discussed child poverty when we both came into these roles 18 months ago. There was a big concern that with Covid we would see a big spike. The child poverty figures released for 2020, which is the latest we have from December of last year, actually showed a drop. Some 14,000 children came out of child poverty, which is a 1.2% drop. It is a small drop but it does show that the measures we took during the Covid pandemic, with the additional supports, did work. That spike we all feared did not happen and we actually had a decrease.
That is a good argument for keeping some of those additional measures.
We hear all of the time that childcare is one of the key issues. I am aware there has been increased investment, and that there is a plan for a joint labour committee, JLC, which is all very welcome, but we also need to keep the focus on as much investment as possible. We know it is mainly women who are affected by that issue, many of whom are the head of a single-parent household and they are affected by poverty more than other households.
The school meals programme is excellent. If possible we should look at widening it. It should not just be for DEIS schools. There are kids in non-DEIS schools who would also need that. I just wanted to raise the issue and I believe that we really need to keep a focus particularly on areas such as food poverty and childcare. These are really practical ways we can help families out of poverty. It is not good to have to say that in 2022 people in the State is relying on food banks. Perhaps there could be a little bit more joined-up thinking on these issues. I acknowledge that some of this falls to the Department of Education, with regard to school meals but it also falls to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.
The joined-up element is very important. The successor strategy to the Better Outcomes, Better Futures will have a significant child poverty focus within it. As a subset of this we will also have the EU child guarantee, which is guidance, support and some financial support coming from the European Union. The child guarantee and the actions we will take there will sit within the wider Better Outcomes, Better Futures work. That joined-up element is very important and this is why I am engaging very closely, in the first instance with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, and then with the Ministers for Social Protection and Education and other Ministers.
The Deputy is correct regarding childcare. This is why we took steps in this year's budget with regard to the removal of the wraparound hours, which will have a major impact on children in the most disadvantaged areas. The Deputy and I, along with other Deputies, have had significant discussions on this since I came into this role. We have taken the major step whereby 5,000 children will benefit from not having the wraparound hours removed from their free childcare allocation from this spring. That is a major step forward.
114. Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth his plans to improve the pay, benefits and conditions for professionals working in the childcare sector given that many of these employees are earning below the living wage; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5559/22]
What are the Minister's plans to improve the pay, benefits and conditions for professional workers in the childcare sector, given that many of these employees are earning below the minimum wage?
I firmly believe, like the Deputy, that the rate of pay in the sector should reflect the value of the work that early-years educators and school-age childcare practitioners do for children, for families, for society and the economy.
The most recent available data, from the annual early years sector profile survey, indicate that the average hourly wage in the sector in 2021 was €12.60, which is below the living wage, with many staff working part time or on temporary contracts. This is not sustainable and is not acceptable. I am very conscious of the need for significant improvement in both pay and conditions across the sector.
As the Deputy will be aware, the State is not the employer, and my Department does not set wage levels or determine working conditions for staff in the sector. I am, however, doing all I can to address the issue. In December 2020, I set up a process to examine how we could regulate pay and conditions in the sector. This process culminated in the establishment of a joint labour committee, which began meeting in December 2021 and which, hopefully, will result in an employment regulation order. With that order, supported by the new core funding stream I announced in budget 2022, there is now a real prospect of improvement in pay rates through the joint labour committee. The scale of allocation under the new core funding is significant. It is €69 million in 2022, equivalent to more than €207 million in a full year, and it will enable employers to meet the new pay scales coming from an employment regulation order.
In December 2021, I published Nurturing Skills: The Workforce Plan for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, which includes commitments to deliver career pathways, promote careers in the sector, and strengthen supports for continuing professional development. The Government and I are fully committed to ensuring that childcare professionals are properly paid. We have created the mechanism to deliver that through the joint labour committee. We have also delivered the funding to deliver it through the €69 million provided for in this year's budget.
I thank the Minister for his response. He will be aware that more than 30,000 people are employed in the childcare sector, most of whom are female. The minimum qualification they hold at the moment is FETAC level 5. Ireland has some of the most highly-rated qualified professionals who are paid some of the lowest wages in any sector, some below the living wage.
The types of people who go into childcare are fantastic, with graduates moving into the sector at the moment. While the Minister might say that his Department may not have responsibility for certain issues, we just need a commitment from him that he will help to implement new pay scales, develop the profession and make it more feasible for people to get into the profession.
I ask for a commitment from the Minister to implement better pay scales, to help develop the profession and to make it more feasible for people to join the profession. I firmly believe that we are not paying the proper money. I have met many parents and the most important thing for them is that their child is safe and properly looked after. For me, childcare is a vocation for the people who work in the sector. They need to be looked after better.
The Deputy has my commitment to deliver on a better pay scale. I think I have demonstrated that by the €67 million that we are providing specifically for that in this year's budget. In a full year that will grow to €207 million. That is a firm commitment. The Deputy also has my commitment to develop the profession. That is demonstrated through the workforce development plan that I published in December and that my Department will be working to implement. We are not just talking about policies anymore. The Government has put a very substantial amount of money on the table to help facilitate that joint labour committee process. I do not set the pay rates. We have to let that process of negotiation work between the employers and employees. We facilitated the start of that process and we gave a very clear indication of the Government's intention to support it and, most important, to support the increased levels of wages by specifically allocating money to help employers pay better wages.
My biggest concern is that there is no job security. There is no professional progression. The workers are being paid the minimum wage and many of them are being paid below the living wage. As I said, most of these families entrust their children to the childcare workers. The childcare sector has been underfunded for many years and as a result, Ireland is ranked as the lowest country in the EU for investment in this vital area. The Government needs to invest in the area. We need to get the right people looking after our children. It is very important that we do this right.
An expert group was set up back in 2019. I ask the Minister provide me with an update on what is happening with that group. It was supposed to examine the issue of funding and the Minister mentioned a figure in relation to that. We need to get the right people into the childcare profession. My biggest fear, with the current shortage in staff, is that these people may be persuaded to go elsewhere. We need proper professionals in the sector.
I thank the Deputy. The expert group reported in December. We are now implementing its findings. The first part of that is the substantial additional allocation of funding this year of €69 million. That is the first step towards that, but there are other elements in terms of introducing a DEIS-type model for childcare and broadening out the national childcare scheme, NCS. We took a small step in that in this year's budget. In next year's budget, budget 2023, we will seek to invest considerably more in the NCS, which will also reduce costs for parents.
The Deputy rightly put the focus on childcare professionals, and there is a lot to be done in that regard. However, we also need to reduce costs for parents. I think everybody agrees on that point. Getting back to the issue of providers, the Deputy is right that we have not supported childcare professionals enough in the past. However, we have the workforce development plan and we have funding to support improved rates of pay through the JLC. Childcare providers will also benefit from the new sick pay scheme introduced by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Therefore, very significant advances to support childcare professionals are being made.
115. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the progress made to date on securing a suitable location for a domestic violence refuge in Monaghan town; the efforts that have been made to identify a suitable location and secure funding for a domestic violence refuge in County Cavan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5320/22]
I ask the Minister to outline the progress made to date in securing a suitable location for a domestic violence refuge in Monaghan town; and the efforts that have been made to identify a suitable location and secure funding for a domestic violence refuge in County Cavan.
I am aware that this matter is one of importance to the Deputy and to other Members of the House who have also raised questions about refuge provision in counties Cavan and Monaghan with me and my predecessors. I know there is strong interest locally. I have recently received correspondence from Cavan County Council in this regard. The response to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, DSGBV, is a cross-departmental and multi-agency issue. It is co-ordinated by the Department of Justice. Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, provides supports for victims of domestic violence, primarily funded through NGO service providers. In 2021, Tusla allocated €28 million in core funding for DSGBV, plus €2 million in contingency funding to address Covid challenges. In 2022, the allocation will be €31 million, amounting to a €3 million increase in core funding. Funding in 2022 will support services to address cost pressures and maintain continued services, including core sustainability costs and the ongoing supportive initiatives commenced in 2021. The additional allocation will also fund the beginning of the implementation of the accommodation review.
I am informed by Tusla that support for victims of DSGBV in counties Cavan and Monaghan is available through the services of Tearmann, which is based in County Monaghan and funded by the Tusla. Tearmann also provides outreach services in both counties. Tusla funded Tearmann in 2021 to the value of €214,000.
The Tusla review of the provision of accommodation for victims of domestic violence has assessed the current and requisite distribution of safe emergency accommodation. It has examined the current level of refuge provision, evidence of demand for service, unmet need and the analysis of proximity to refuges by local communities. The review has been completed and publication is expected in the next two weeks. The Government will be guided by the recommendations of the review. I expect the implementation process for the review will identify priority areas where there is the greatest need for providing safe accommodation for victims of DSGBV. I am very keen to see the gap in geographic coverage in counties Cavan and Monaghan being addressed. I hope to see the accommodation review used as the vehicle to make progress and address that gap.
One of the main reasons many women do not leave an abusive relationship is the shortage of available and affordable accommodation that could rehouse a victim of domestic abuse at short notice. According to the Council of Europe, it is recommended that there be one refuge place per 100,000 people, which means there should be 446 places in Ireland. Currently, there are 137, which is ten less than four years ago. We signed up to the Istanbul Convention. Why sign up to a convention if we are not going to implement it?
In my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, there is no refuge place and there has not been one historically. I welcome that the issue is being addressed and I am hopeful that progress will be made in the very near future. I recognise the tremendous work that Tearmann does in the two counties. There are only two or three members of staff employed in that service and they do a lot of outreach work.
According to Safe Ireland, 808 requests for refuge could not be met last year. As we know, the nature of an abuser is to isolate the victim from family and support. Victims go to a refuge seeking support because they do not have anywhere else to go. I shudder to think where such victims find support or what they have to do as a result. Perhaps they have to go back to the violent perpetrator.
There is absolutely no doubt that we do not have enough refuge spaces in this country. No one disputes that fact. That is why the accommodation review was undertaken to outline where the gaps are and where the lack of coverage and availability of spaces is most acute. It was undertaken to identify the areas where there are communities, families, primarily women, fleeing abusive situations, who have to travel very long distances to find refuge. I have no doubt that when the review is published, it will illustrate what the Deputy and her colleagues know, namely, that there is a very substantive gap in coverage in counties Cavan and Monaghan. That is something that needs to be addressed.
As the Deputy is aware, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, and I briefed Opposition leaders, including the Deputy's party leader, last week on this issue. We outlined that there is a substantive change under way. Responsibility for refuge provision is moving from my Department and Tusla to the Department of Justice. All responses to DSGBV will be run through the Department of Justice, including the implementation of the accommodation review.
I welcome that the issue will be the responsibility of one Minister. We know that what is needed to tackle domestic violence and violence against women is a multipronged approach. It is very welcome that one Minister will be able to choreograph all of that. It is scary. We are all aware of the recent death of Ashling Murphy. Almost every week, the newspapers report that a woman has been murdered or a case is being heard in court. Domestic violence is a scourge and a pandemic. The Garda reported that it responded to almost 50,000 domestic incidents last year, which amounted to a 10% increase on the year before. That figure only relates to incidents that were reported. The need for refuges in Cavan and Monaghan and the other seven counties that do not have one could be addressed immediately to support women who need to get out of dangerous situations to save their lives and stay alive.
The significant change that is being made in moving the responsibility for refuges and other services to the Department of Justice is one advocacy groups and the NGOs working in the sector have been calling for for a long time.
We ran this audit and it became clear that this was the call from the sector. We are implementing that now. That is important. Even though responsibility in this area is moving out of Tusla, in the time that I have been Minister, we have significantly increased investment in Tusla in respect of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. We put in an extra €2.7 million in budget 2021 and an extra €3 million in budget 2022. We have recognised this epidemic of violence against women, as the Deputy and, indeed, the programme for Government describe it. We have put in place significant additional funding for services, both core funding and Covid contingency funding. The next step is the provision of that additional refuge space. The accommodation review will allow us to focus on that and to bring forward mechanisms to, as the Deputy has put it, swiftly deliver the new refuges.
116. Deputy Marian Harkin asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the plans being put in place to address the findings of the cost of disability research report published on 7 December 2021; and the way in which it is proposed to reduce day-to-day costs for persons with a disability. [5724/22]
As the Minister of State will know, Indecon produced a report on the cost of disability in Ireland at the end of last year. What policies is she putting in place to address the issues raised in that report?
I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to bring the House up to date. The report, The Cost of Disability in Ireland, was commissioned by the Minister for Social Protection and prepared by Indecon International Research Economists. It was published in December 2021 and provides importance evidence as to the additional costs that people with disability face in their day-to-day lives.
The programme for Government contains a commitment to use research into the cost of disability to properly inform the direction of future policy. As the evidence of The Cost of Disability in Ireland report has implications for many areas of public policy, a whole-of-government approach is required to develop appropriate and timely responses and to ensure that everyday costs are reduced for people with disabilities and their families.
For this reason, the co-ordination of the whole-of-government response is being carried out under the national disability inclusion strategy, NDIS. The NDIS is one of two national policy frameworks through which the rights of people with disabilities in Ireland are progressively realised. In addition to advancing key actions under the NDIS, my Department supports the implementation and monitoring of the NDIS by co-ordinating the national disability inclusion strategy steering group, NDISSG. I chair this group and its meetings are attended by representatives of Departments, agencies and the disability stakeholder group, the DSG 6.
The Cost of Disability in Ireland report was considered by the NDISSG in December 2021, within 24 hours of publication. I was very fortunate in that the Ministers, Deputies O'Gorman and Humphreys, and I actually attended the presentation from all stakeholders. The group will examine meaningful action to reduce day-to-day costs for people with disabilities in Ireland. Aligning the findings and recommendations of The Cost of Disability in Ireland report to the NDIS will ensure that recommendations can be properly considered at whole-of-government level and that progress against actions taken will be monitored. We meet every three months. There is going to be a traffic-light system implemented and we will see the progress every quarter.
I thank the Minister of State. We are all aware of the extra costs people face because of disability. Some of these are once-off costs and some are yearly but largely they are day-to-day and week-to-week costs. This report mentions everything from housing adaption costs to hearing aids, travel costs, utility bills, home help and so on. There is really good analysis of these extra costs in the report. For example, the extra cost in respect of food is almost 9%. For fuel and light, it is almost 10% and, for household durable goods, nearly 20%. The report goes through these issues and tells us the types of extra costs people face. It says that the average is approximately €8,000 per annum but that varies depending on the disability involved. For certain types of disability, for example, visual impairment, the extra costs total €13,500. We know what the issues are and we know the costs. I am asking what steps we are taking right now.
If the Deputy were to ask me what is happening right now, I would say that all of the Departments are looking at the cost of disability. She has quite rightly identified that the extra costs faced by people with a disability vary depending on the disability. However, there is a standard-of-living cost as well. A person who has a prosthetic may face extra costs of €20,000, depending on whether their medical card will cover these costs. It might, but it might not cover the cost of the prosthetic they require. It might not meet the needs of a child undergoing two or three growth spurts in a year. That is one of the elements. The other element that was really interesting in the report was how expensive it is for the families of children with challenging behaviours or autism spectrum disorder, ASD, to get extra care and so on. That is being looked at. It is being divided and compartmentalised. Each Department will come back in March with its own suggestions as to what exactly it is going to do.
This is obviously a work in progress. I will bring two further issues to the Minister of State's attention. The first relates to the Housing for All strategy. Within that, there is a strategy for persons with disabilities. It tells us things like disabled people will be at the centre of decision-making. That sounds fine but the question is how is that done and how is it managed? Does the Minister of State have any thoughts as to how she believes that will work?
The other specific issue relates to the ongoing review of the primary medical certificate system. All of us will get emails, if not every week then certainly every month, from people who are trying to access a primary medical certificate. It is extraordinarily difficult to get a primary medical certificate. A review is ongoing. What progress is being made in that regard? I believe it is looking at expanding the range of conditions for which a person can access these certificates.
With regard to the Housing for All strategy, there will, of course, be a stakeholder group involved. Persons with a disability will be at the total and utter centre of that. It is they who will be telling us about universal design, that is, design that ensures that the social housing stock we develop will meet the changing needs of those who will come in and out of those properties. Particularly with regard to disabilities, these needs are always changing. We need to future-proof the housing stock. I am working with various Deputies, including Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to ensure this. I see that Deputy Hourigan is behind me. She is assisting me with the plans in respect of universal design.
Moving onto the Deputy's next question, which related to-----
Primary medical certificates.
-----primary medical certificates, I convened a group on that issue for the first time since 2017. This included officials from the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Health and the HSE. I got everybody around the table because, as we all know, eligibility for the certificate is far too narrow. That work is progressing.
