Minister Meriton in Question Time |31 March 2015

The Minister for Social Affairs, Community Development and Sports, Vincent Meriton, will appear before the House for question time this week.

The minister will address the following concerns: progress achieved in the conversion of the former Anse Aux Pins crèche into a day care centre; counselling and support programmes for distraught parents of children struggling with substance abuse; envisaged measures to address the issue of rising welfare payouts to single-parent households; the felling of trees considered a public hazard in the English River district; the ministry’s plans for the Baie Ste Anne Judo Club considering the sport’s increasing popularity among Praslin youth; measures to discourage acts of indecency in cemeteries and the possibility of reconsidering assistance provided to parents with children in day care facilities by the Agency for Social Protection.

Additionally, one motion has been tabled for this sitting. The representative of the Anse Boileau district, Bernard Arnephy, will call for the government to grant greater autonomy to local district administrations in the management of cleaning and tree felling activities, particularly for the maintenance of roadsides, beaches and rubbish sites in their respective districts.