Results 281-300 of 17,805 for speaker:Helen McEntee

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: State Examinations (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Programme for Government commits to developing an appropriate mechanism to allow additional time for students with specific needs and in certain circumstances, and also to ensure that those who use assistive technology can do so in State examinations. The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has responsibility for the operation and delivery of the State examinations, and facilitates...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: State Examinations (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Programme for Government commits to developing an appropriate mechanism to allow additional time for students with specific needs and in certain circumstances, and also to ensure that those who use assistive technology can do so in State examinations. The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has responsibility for the operation and delivery of the State examinations, and facilitates...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Admissions (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The rollout of Apply to School marks a significant step towards improving the school admission system and fulfilling the Programme for Government commitment to introduce a nationwide common application system. As the Deputy will be aware, the pilot involves five towns: Athenry, Celbridge, Clonakilty, Greystones, and Tullamore. Other areas will be taken into consideration for future...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Youth Services (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: National youth organisations funded by the Youth Affairs unit of this department under the Youth Services Grant Scheme (YSGS) submit annual progress reports including data on staffing and participation of young people. The data returned by national youth organisations in these progress reports is set out below together with details on funding provided. As progress reports are submitted in the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Youth Work Supports (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy for Youth Work and Related Services is the strategic framework for the youth work sector, published in September 2024. The strategy aims to build awareness of youth services, strengthen youth services, and ensure that youth services remain accessible and of value to young people across Ireland. The implementation of the strategy will be...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: This Government is fully committed to ensuring that every child has a positive school experience, with access to qualified and engaged teachers who are dedicated to supporting their learning. This remains a top priority. There are more qualified teachers than ever working in schools with analysis of payroll data from March showing over 79,000 teachers employed nationwide in our schools...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Special Educational Needs (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: My department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non-DEIS, to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the DEIS programme is a key policy initiative of my department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The main focus of the Department’s resources over the last decade and for the coming period is on the provision of critical additional capacity to cater for increasing demographics. With an emphasis on maximising the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible in the first instance and providing necessary additional capacity through targeted and prioritised project...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: My Department recognises the challenges and difficulties teachers can experience in schools throughout the country. In order to assist teachers to deal with these challenges and difficulties my Department has put in place a range of guidelines, information resources and training. To assist schools in terms of Wellbeing supports for staff, the department has put in place an Occupational...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Irish Language (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Department of Education and Youth recognises the importance of supporting the Irish language within the youth work sector and is committed to exploring opportunities to strengthen this area. Currently, the Youth Affairs Unit supports Irish language youth work through its core funding schemes and targeted initiatives. The Youth Services Grant Scheme (YSGS) is the principal funding...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Gender Recognition (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: I propose to take Questions Nos. 885 to 889, inclusive, 892, 896 to 900, inclusive, and 903 to 909, inclusive, together. The Programme for Government 2025, Securing Ireland’s Future, commits the Government to improving the lives and protecting the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community in Ireland and globally. The vision set out in my department’s Statement of Strategy is one of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Curriculum (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: I propose to take Questions Nos. 891 and 895 together. Apart from a small number of prescribed texts at post-primary level, determined by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), there are no requirements placed on a school by my Department to use any individual textbooks or resources. My Department does not generally approve, commission, sponsor or endorse educational...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Curriculum (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The SPHE and Wellbeing curriculum strives to foster an understanding and appreciation of all children. Through the curriculum objectives, children are supported to develop self-confidence and a positive sense of self, and to appreciate and respect the human and cultural diversity that exists in society. To this end, the curriculum aims to foster in the child a sense of care and respect for...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: Since 2020, my department has invested over €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the National Development Plan, involving the completion of over 1,300 school building projects. In addition, repurposing, and optimisation of existing accommodation capacity across the school estate has been a key enabler of timely, local provision of special class capacity in a way...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The major building project for the school referred to by the Deputy has just recently completed Stage 2(a) of Architectural Planning – Developed Design, where the preferred design option is developed to a stage where the project can be fully cost planned, and prepared to lodge for statutory approvals. The brief for this project is to provide 12 Mainstream Classrooms plus 1 Speech...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school referred to was approved to enter the Department’s pipeline of school buildings under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme for a project providing 2 Special Education Needs classrooms and 1 Special Education Tuition room. The project is devolved to the school authority for delivery. I can confirm that a Stage 1 report was returned to my department. Following...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: Teaching allocations are determined by the enrolment of the school on the previous 30 September. This process enables the Department to have in place the necessary measures to assess the accuracy of returns and thereby strengthen the integrity of the resource allocation process and the equitable treatment of schools, whilst ensuring that publicly funded resources are properly allocated. ...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: The project referred to by the Deputy has been devolved for delivery to the Laois Offaly Education Training Board (LOETB). A design team was appointed to progress the project through the necessary architectural stages of design, statutory approvals, procurement, and construction. The approved project brief will provide for a 400 pupil post primary school and 4-classroom special education...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: As the Deputy may be aware, in order to plan for school provision and analyse the relevant demographic data, my department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a geographical information system, using data from a range of sources, including CSO census data, child benefit and school enrolment data, to identify where the pressure for school places across the country will...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (4 Nov 2025)

Helen McEntee: Since 2020, my department has invested over €6 billion in our schools throughout the country under the National Development Plan, involving the completion of over 1,300 school building projects. In addition, repurposing, and optimisation of existing accommodation capacity across the school estate has been a key enabler of timely, local provision of special class capacity in a way that...