Catherine Martin also expected to update ministers on RTÉ crises at Cabinet meeting
All 31 county and city councils in the State will see their minimum baseline funding for 2024 increase by at least €1.5m each as part of an overall LPT funding increase of €75.4m to fund day-to-day services, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien will tell ministers today.
The Cabinet is meeting for the first time since late July at Avondale House in Co Wicklow ahead of the return of the Dáil later this month. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will invite ministers to set out their priorities for the remainder of the year.
Media Minister Catherine Martin is to seek approval to publish RTÉ’s long-awaited 2022 annual report and is also expected to update ministers on the ongoing crises at the station including governance reforms, reviews under way and the continuing fall in licence fee revenue.
Last month, the Irish Independent revealed that RTÉ will report a deficit in its annual accounts for last year – following two years of net surpluses in 2020 and 2021 as a result of Covid – with the exact figure set to be confirmed later today.
Ministers will also sign off on a €1.3bn forestry package to be announced by Mr Varadkar, Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue and Land Use Minister Pippa Hackett.
The programme, which will run until 2030, aims to plant 8,000 hectares per annum. Ireland currently only plants 2,000 hectares per annum.
Farmers will get a payment every year for 20 years under the scheme while non-farmers will get a 15-year premium.
Ms Hackett said the scheme marks “a significant change in direction for Irish forestry, not only to encourage more planting, but to change the model and the approach”.
Meanwhile, Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney will bring a memo proposing to open up the Government’s temporary energy support scheme to businesses impacted by the price of kerosene in 2022.
The Business Users Support Scheme for Kerosene, or BUSSK, will compensate eligible businesses for 50pc of the increased cost of kerosene purchased for heating their business premises during the period from March 1 to December 31, 2022, compared to the average retail price for the same period in 2021.
There will be a guaranteed minimum payment of €500. Businesses that have a commercially rateable premises and purchased a minimum of 1,000 litres of kerosene during the eligible period, can apply to the scheme.
B&Bs that are approved under the Fáilte Ireland National Quality Assurance Framework are also eligible.
Businesses that have already received payments from the Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme can also apply to BUSSK, and businesses with multiple premises can apply in respect of each premises.
The Cabinet is also expected to approve a request from Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to examine whether to set up a new emerging-health-threats agency.
An expert will be appointed to design a dedicated emerging-health-threats unit or agency, which will focus on pandemic preparedness, infectious diseases and biological threats.
It is expected that the scoping of the optimal design will be led by an external expert who will report directly to the health minister.
The head of the World Health Organisation recently urged countries across the globe to prepare for the next pandemic, warning that future health emergencies could be even worse than the Covid-19 pandemic.
