Written Answers Nos. 176-195
176. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if, with regard to the Indecon report entitled Review of Certain Aspects of the Irish Horse Racing Industry, he will provide an update on the provision of a seat on Horse Sport Ireland for a northern representative; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43016/23]
View answer177. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will provide an update on the seat of the Northern Ireland Horse Board on the Horse Sport Ireland breeding and production advisory council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43017/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 176 and 177 together.
I understand that the Board of Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) is currently reviewing its Constitution. In this regard, Clause 39 of the Constitution outlines how the Board is composed. Specifically, in relation to the representative of the horse sport industry in Northern Ireland, it states: “One person shall be appointed by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in consultation with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, as nominated by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and Sport Northern Ireland to represent the horse sport industry in Northern Ireland.”
As this position has been vacant for some time, to try and progress this matter, officials in my Department met remotely with officials from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) on two occasions to consider options to facilitate the appointment. Our colleagues from DAERA have indicated that it is not possible to secure a nomination in line with the existing HSI Constitution at the present time.
It was noted that NI Sports Forum, an umbrella organisation which represents the sports industry in NI, has a Board Recruitment Programme (nisf.net) which includes a database of people with a variety of skills who would be interested in joining a board. This is considered the most appropriate way to facilitate a NI appointment. However, it would require an amendment to the current Clause 39 of the HSI constitution. Should the proposed amendment to the constitution be accepted by the Board of HSI, my Department would then issue a request to the NI Sports Forum for a nominee to represent the NI horse sport industry.
178. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department engaged with the Northern Ireland Horse Board regarding provision of funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43018/23]
View answerI am not currently engaged with the Northern Ireland Horse Board regarding the provision of funding to them as this organisation is outside my jurisdiction.
As you may be aware Horse Sport Ireland are contracted to my Department to deliver National Breeding Services for the Sport Horse Sector and breeders based in NI are entitled to benefit from some of these initiatives.
179. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to explain the differences between the Irish injured jockeys fund, qualified riders accident fund company and the jockeys accident fund company limited by guarantee; the reason there is a need for three separate funds; and how each differs from the other. [43022/23]
View answerThe Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) is the regulatory body for all horseracing in Ireland. The IHRB is a company limited by guarantee. The Turf Club and the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee (INHSC) transferred the regulatory functions together with related assets and liabilities to the company under a business transfer agreement on 1 January 2018.
The role of the IHRB as the regulatory body for horseracing is provided for in legislation. However, the body itself remains a private entity.
The IHRB has informed my Department that it provides personnel support for the funds or charities referenced below which are administered by the Turf Club or the INHSC.
The Jockeys Accident Fund (JAF)
Originally established in 1933 as a charitable entity to provide benefit for professional jockeys and apprentices who are injured either during a race meeting or in the schooling of horses. Income for the fund is derived from volunteer levies on owner and jockey fees, and on jockey and apprentice annual licence fees, as well as investment income and voluntary donations. The JAF now operates as a company limited by guarantee.
The Qualified Riders Accident Fund (QRAF)
The QRAF provides financial support for Qualified Riders (Amateur Jockeys) licensed by the IHRB, injured while racing including Point to Point racing. Income for the fund is derived from a levy on race entry fees and riding fees and on Qualified Rider annual licence fees, as well as investment income and voluntary donations. The QRAF is a company limited by guarantee.
In addition to providing benefits to eligible riders, both the QRAF and JAF provide funding for the completion of relevant research designed to benefit rider health, safety and wellbeing.
The Irish Injured Jockeys (IIJ)
The aim of this charity is to increase awareness and raise vital funds to support injured jockeys. The IIJ provides an additional layer of care and support for the other funds, with individual cases presented by the other funds to the Board of the IIJ and approved by the Directors before any support is made available. The IIJ may also help in individual cases that fall outside the remit of the other funds including help for jockeys in their secondary careers and or careers post racing.
180. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine how his Department engages with non-governmental bodies and private companies on compiling and distributing information leaflets to farmers, such as the example of a recent leaflet distributed to farmers across the State (details supplied) and the GDPR rules around sharing information from a private company in this way; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43027/23]
View answerMy Department only shares personal data with third parties where there is a legal basis to do so and in line with our obligations under Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Regarding the specific example cited by the Deputy- Irish Bioenergy association IrBEA compiled the content for the Green Waste leaflet and no personal data was shared with IrBEA by my Department.
A third party was procured for the purposes of printing of leaflets to be distributed to all farmers and with whom names, addresses and eircodes were shared for that purpose. A contract was in place between the Department and the printing company under which it was permissible to share this data. Such contracts are subject to confidentiality agreements which I can confirm were in place in this in this instance.
181. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in light of the very serious losses as a result of the summer flooding in July 2023 on the Shannon callows resulting in the substantial loss of both summer and winter fodder, if he will outline his plans to provide alternative fodder and assistance to farmers in the callows; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43087/23]
View answerMy Department is aware of the impact caused by flood event of last July in the Shannon Callows area and the subsequent difficulties in harvesting fodder in the callow regions.
In this regard, I would like to highlight that my Department paid out €56 million in funding to farmers under the 2022 Fodder Scheme in response to the Ukraine crisis. A further €30 million has been paid to farmers under the 2023 Fodder Scheme which supported the production of fodder on Irish farms over those years.
In addition, the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme - ACRES - is Ireland's new €1.5 billion flagship agri-environment climate scheme under Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan opened for application earlier this year.
ACRES is a farmer-friendly scheme to help address biodiversity decline while delivering an income support for farm families in Ireland, with 46,000 applicants already approved in Tranche 1 of the scheme, of which counties adjacent to the River Shannon including Clare, Galway, Limerick, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary and Westmeath account for 15,700 farmer applicants. A second tranche is due to open in mid-October.
My Department is represented and participates fully in the Shannon Flood Management Working group lead by OPW.
182. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number and location of therapist posts, including speech and language therapists, occupational, psychological and other, appointed to special schools to date in 2023, setting out the CHO areas of each appointment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43112/23]
View answerAs this refers to service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
183. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the reason a person (details supplied) has lost their respite entitlement and has not received any respite since the beginning of Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42934/23]
View answerAs the query refers to service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
184. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of children in receipt of AIMS support in early years settings for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, in tabular form. [42939/23]
View answerThe Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a model of supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can access the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme. Its goal is to empower pre-school providers to deliver an inclusive pre-school experience, ensuring that every eligible child can meaningfully participate in the ECCE Programme and reap the benefits of high quality early learning and care.
The main supports are grouped into universal or targeted supports. Universal supports are designed to create a more inclusive culture in Early Learning and Care settings, through training courses and qualifications for staff. Where universal supports are not enough to meet the needs of an individual child, targeted supports are available to ensure the child can meaningfully participate in pre-school.
Below are the statistics for number of children who have been approved for these targeted supports. Many more children benefit from the universal AIM provision towards provision of more inclusive settings but these are not readily quantifiable.
|
Levels 4,5 & 7 Combined |
Unique Children Approved |
|
2023/24 (As of 30th August 2023) |
4,996 |
|
2022/23 |
7,217 |
|
2021/22 |
5,648 |
|
2020/21 |
4,238 |
185. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the current full and first year costs associated with the AIM programme; the cost per child; the total cost per hour to deliver the programme; the cost to extend the programme to five hours per day, per child, in total; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42940/23]
View answerThe 2023 expenditure for the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is estimated to be approximately €48m.
This funding covers the cost of the seven levels of AIM, which encompass a range of both universal and targeted supports during ECCE for pre-school settings. ECCE, the free preschool provision is 3 hours per day, 38 weeks per year.
This funding covers training of staff, communications and other forms of related sector wide supports. It provides access to therapeutic services where they are critical to enable a child to be enrolled and to meaningfully participate in the ECCE programme, and access to expert early year’s educational advice and support from a team of dedicated Early Years Specialists.
This funding provides a programme of capital grants for specialised equipment, appliances, assistive technology and/or minor alterations for pre-school settings to ensure children with a disability can participate in the ECCE programme.
These elements cannot be meaningfully quantified on a cost per hour basis.
The component which might be roughly quantified as an hours allocations is for the additional staff member/ reduction in ratios under Level 7 of AIM. The weekly cost per allocation is €240. The hourly cost per allocation is €16. To note that this allocation may cover more than one child in the same session so it is not strictly an hours per child cost.
As it is not feasible to quantify an overall hours per child model given the multi-stranded nature of AIM, the calculation has only been applied to current Level 7 funding allocation. Assuming that the overall increase is from 3 hours day of ECCE to 5 hours per day, the cost of this Level 7 would increase by approximately €26m.
To note, in addition to caveats above around applying hours based costings, that this assumes that all services are in a position to uplift provision to 5 hours per day and that all families currently availing of AIM Level 7 would avail of 5 hours.
186. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide a list of general schemes referred by his Department to an Oireachtas committee for pre-legislative scrutiny from 1 January 2016 to date; the date each was referred; the date that the general scheme was published for the public to review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42944/23]
View answerSince my Department was established in June 2020, it has prepared eight general schemes which have been referred to Oireachtas Committees for pre-legislative scrutiny. The table below sets out the information requested:
|
Title of general scheme |
Date referred |
Date published |
|
General Scheme of the Parent’s Leave and Benefit (Amendment) Bill 2020* |
8 January 2021 |
8 December 2020 |
|
General Scheme of the Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill |
12 January 2021 |
12 January 2021 |
|
General Scheme of the Child Care (Amendment) [Guardian ad litem] Bill 2021 |
22 November 2021 |
22 November 2021 |
|
General Scheme of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill |
30 November 2021 |
22 November 2021 |
|
General Scheme of the Birth Information and Tracing Bill |
11 May 2021 |
11 May 2021 |
|
General Scheme of a Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill |
31 March 2022 |
31 March 2022 |
|
General Scheme of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022 |
25 April 2022 |
21 April 2022 |
|
General Scheme of the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2023 |
18 April 2023 |
19 April 2023 |
I note that while the General Scheme of the Parent’s Leave and Benefit (Amendment) Bill 2020 was referred to the Oireachtas on 8 January 2021, its provisions were incorporated into the Family Leave Bill 2021 and subsequently renamed the Family Leave and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2021.
187. Deputy Mark Ward asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if an individual who is approved for 24-7 adult disability services can also attend adult disability day services; how funding for both types of services is co-ordinated for the individual; if funding can be rearranged to meet the need for the individual; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42989/23]
View answerAs this question refers to service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
188. Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide a full breakdown of the funding allocated to the early years sector for 2022 and 2023 in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42999/23]
View answer189. Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide a breakdown of the funding allocated to all service types within the early years sector, that is, community childcare, privately-owned operators and childcare providers in the home, for 2022 and 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43000/23]
View answer190. Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide a breakdown of the allocations going to the different State bodies, that is, Tusla, Pobal, the Department of Education, Better Starts and the county childcare committees, for 2022 and 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43001/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 188, 189 and 190 together.
My Department is currently collating the information requested and a reply will issue directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.
191. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide an update on the case of a child (details supplied) awaiting an appointment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43126/23]
View answerAs this refers to service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
192. Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the extent of the waiting list for children requiring assessments of need in County Clare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43163/23]
View answerAs this refers to service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
193. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Health if he will allocate funding in budget 2024 to extend the national treatment purchase fund to include timely assessment for both child and adult psychological services, as committed to in the programme for Government, and extend it to include occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy until backlogs are cleared; if he will fully fund the carer’s guarantee; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42872/23]
View answerI understand that issues in relation to the carers allowance were addressed by my colleague the Minister for Social Protection.
The NTPF was established under the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act 1961, with the function of providing hospital treatment for citizens and the collection and validation of information in relation to waiting lists. Its role was extended in 2009 (via the Nursing Home Support Scheme Act, 2009) to provide for negotiations with private nursing homes in the context of fees payable for Fair Deal clients.
Notwithstanding the fact that Primary Legislation would be required to expand the NTPF’s role there are other core factors that may militate against a role for the NTPF in the areas identified by the Deputy in the short to medium term.
Firstly, there is the nature of private capacity in the context of hospitals versus community services. Currently, NTPF treatments are purchased from hospitals (institutions) through panel agreements with the relevant providers; community services are predominately provided via individual practitioners.
People using HSE primary care therapies are likely to have more complex needs and, therefore, require several services at the same time, provided through a multidisciplinary team. In essence, they have a longer-term relationship with health services rather than an episodic relationship such as that provided in a hospital, and as such it would be necessary to cost and profile ‘bundles’ of work that would be required to address service user needs and pathway requirements, as distinct from the once-off episodic treatment arrangements with hospitals.
In addition, careful consideration would need to be given to the impact of the purchasing of private capacity on long-term expansion of public capacity within primary care, and ensuring appropriate skill mix to meet the needs of people including children with more complex needs.
Any changes would need to be widely consulted upon, analysed, and planned prior to enactment. The NTPF could potentially play a role in the future. However, there are foundational issues as outlined above that need systematic reform and development to enable an NTPF style approach.
194. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Health the way a person (details supplied) can access old medical records in order to follow up on some historical issues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42885/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
195. Deputy Michael Creed asked the Minister for Health the reason a cohort of nursing staff (details supplied) have yet to be paid their Covid-19 pandemic payment. [42898/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly.
