Results 681-700 of 1,081,665 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Pauline Tully OR speaker:Mattie McGrath OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Martin Heydon OR speaker:Niall Collins OR speaker:Patrick O'Donovan OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Kathleen Funchion OR speaker:Aengus Ó Snodaigh OR speaker:David Cullinane OR speaker:Pa Daly OR speaker:Brendan Smith OR speaker:Pearse Doherty OR speaker:Aengus Ó Snodaigh15 OR speaker:Alan Farrell)

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: One of the things it does is allow us to do what we are doing and what we are seeing at the moment. In the absence of the HEA Act, we would not have had a section 64 process in any higher education institutes. On that basis alone, it is a huge improvement. We have to have regard, as a Government, to the fact that while most of the HEIs derive the lion's share of their funding from the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I heard my colleague, the Minister for Education, on the radio this morning talking to Claire Byrne about this. She laid out in easy to understand terms why grade inflation was introduced. She said the introduction of a cliff edge now would be equally difficult for students to bear for a variety of reasons. I support her in that but I also support her in the concept of moving away from...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: We gave legislative effect to Research Ireland and it was commenced on 1 August. Celine Fitzgerald has been appointed CEO on an interim basis and Michael Horgan is the chairman. It was not without its difficulties. I think everybody acknowledges that. However, the most important thing is that in the passage of the legislation through the Oireachtas, TDs and Senators were anxious to point...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I do not have a date but can revert in due course. It is something we are anxious to do. We have to have a process but it will be during the calendar year 2025, there or thereabouts.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I thank the Senator for his question. I am sure he will have read the responses of the universities. This was one of the things they welcomed. They welcomed the fact, over the last two budgets, we provided €105 million to bridge the gap. We are providing another €50-odd million this year, bringing the figure to around €150 million. We will provide €50 million...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I am glad the Senator acknowledges it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: We are not failing.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: To take the Senator's last point first, as the Senator will appreciate, I will not negotiate a supplementary budget live on television. I am sure the Minister for public expenditure and reform would not appreciate it. I do not accept the premise that it is a failure. I do not think the Irish Universities Association or the representative of the technological universities-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No, I am not going to borrow a phrase from any former Taoiseach or anything like that. I will lay out what we have done. We have gone over halfway across the river and we have, with the opening up of the-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: My late mother had an expression, "Did you ever hear what happened 'thought'?", and I am sure in Ahascragh the Senator knows that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: With regard to the universities, to be fair, everybody accepted that no one expected under any budget, even one Deputy Farrell might introduce, €307 million to be provided in one step. It would have meant nothing for apprenticeships, skills or FET, so-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No. A reform agenda is something that is open to the Department working through the HEA. We have the Higher Education Authority for a good reason. We have it to advise us with regard to needs. We do not live in some sort of a bunker where we do not discuss anything. For instance, getting back to Deputy O'Callaghan's point with regard to inflated grades, the Government is making...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: What it has to do with it is that if the Senator looks at what we have done in the most recent announcement I made with regard to veterinary, we did not put it into what some people call a traditional university, which I think is terrible terminology. We decided to go into regional Ireland and into-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No, it is not a simple question. It is done on a needs-based analysis and we will look at it based on a needs-based analysis. There is no decision made with regard to that. To decide that we are going to give 30% to this and 70% to that or 50% to this and 50% to that denies something called need. The next Minister for further and higher education, or a subsequent one, will obviously have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: To answer the Senator's second question first, no, I do not acknowledge that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: In my first answer on this, I said that by 2029 we will have bridged the agreed gap.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: The Senator is denying the fact that we are already paying in excess of €150 million. It is not just €50 million this year and nothing from last year. This is a cumulative amount of money.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Current and Future Plans for Further and Higher Education: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (9 Oct 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I already said to the Senator a while ago that nobody would have anticipated that it would be €307 million in one year.