Meet your Ministers: 'Huge portfolio' for Communities Department

The Department for Communities' new Minister, Deirdre Hargey, is getting to grips with the 'huge portfolio'.

She told Downtown Cool FM News that her top priorities withing a 'huge portfolio' are safeguarding welfare mitigation, finding solutions to housing problems, progressing Casement Park and advancing Irish Language as a right.

"Some of the immediate issues that I have to address - obviously the welfare mitigations which come to an end at the end of March this year," she said.

"There's obviously a commitment within the New, Decade New Approach deal that we will continue that we will continue with those mitigations and I am engaging with the staff in the department at the moment, and those within the sector to ensure that they continue."

Also featuring on the To-Do list are work on advancing art, culture, and emphasising the importance of sport, and Minister Hargey said that advancing the third stadium project at Casement Park is high up on her agenda.

Another big element, she said, is the housing agenda, including housing solutions for thpose with complex needs to ensure they are supported i a way which allows them to sustain a home.

Language falls within the Department's mission statement too.

Ms Hargey said: "The commissioner's role that had been agreed as part of the new deal will be in the executive office - that's where they're going to be situated - but we're going to be engaging with the officials there and obviously the first ministers about how we take that forward.

"I think it's positive that we got a deal on these issues of rights, and language is a right - particularly indigenous languages - and I think there's real hope within these communities about these issues."