Results 701-720 of 1,048,008 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:Darren O'Rourke OR speaker:Pádraig Mac Lochlainn OR speaker:Martin Kenny)

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: Yes, unless the Senator knows something I do not.

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 establishment of new leadership structures and the organisational review process have been progressing in each of the TUs and a business case has been submitted to our Department. The Department supports a sectoral approach to the development of senior management teams across the five TUs. Such an approach is vital. We have been engaging with the Department of public expenditure and...

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: Wexford County Council is progressing the acquisition of the preferred site by way of compulsory purchase. The intention is for a portion of the site to be used to facilitate a new Wexford campus. The HEA recently received a business case from SETU outlining the proposed infrastructure. That business case will require evaluation. Regarding SETU Waterford, final contracts for 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 will have to revert to the Senator regarding the Confucius Institutes. He and I have constructively debated in the Seanad the importance of academic autonomy, which Senator Mullen will ask me about shortly, the autonomous nature of the higher education institutes and where the Government begins and ends where they are concerned. Recent weeks have raised interesting questions about where...

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: Since 2023, my Department has been engaging with the research and innovation community on this matter. We promote the concepts of due diligence, proper risk management and ensuring that international co-operation is properly risk-checked but at the same time I would be loath to say - I know this is not what the Deputy is saying - that international co-operation is something that we should all...

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 budget, I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for acknowledging the positive in it. The budget for last year versus this year for apprenticeships has gone up by €10 million. Obviously, the backlog is a huge issue that we are concerned about but, as has been acknowledged by all parties, we have made a huge amount of progress on it. Eighty-seven instructors were recruited, with...

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: There is only one, which is pipefitting, which is significantly longer than four years. That is only 1% of the apprenticeships. I am not in any way saying that is not something that we want to make progress on. On what the Deputy said about female participation, 8% of the total apprenticeship population at present are women. It is an improvement but it is not where we want to be. We,...

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 will. We can email it to the Deputy afterwards.

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 CAO is a great leveller in the sense that it is totally anonymous. It does not say that one went to Glanmire secondary school or that one went to a school in the South Mall or wherever. It is a great leveller. It is totally anonymous. It does what it says on the tin. It gives everybody, based on a unique identifier, an opportunity to go to university or to pursue a career for...

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 think Deputy O'Sullivan will appreciate that I would only be of a mind to go tinkering with something if somebody said there was a better system out there. I have not heard of a better system out there to ensure access to autonomous, independent higher education institutions through a system, which is not run by the Department or of the Department but is supported by it in the sense 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: I am not of a mind to review 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: 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: I am not minded to conduct a review. One of things needed from this meeting is absolute confidence that the Department views the system as a system that works. It is the Ronseal system - it "does exactly what it says on the tin".

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 should withdraw that comment.

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 the first instance, we got a sum of money to activate the student accommodation system for 2025. This is in addition to the student accommodation allocation the former Minister, and now Taoiseach, got previously through the national development plan and the windfall. It is up to the universities to subscribe to and ascribe the thresholds in those instances. They will know what a 30%...

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: As the Deputy will know as a constituency TD, the type of students we are targeting are those who will have come through the SUSI system, people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. They will obviously have met a set of criteria already to qualify for a grant. We have changed the thresholds this year to make sure we keep the people in it who are already in it and do not have people...

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: Yes.

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 be fair to career guidance teachers, I think we are changing it. If anyone had the opportunity to attend the WorldSkills Ireland event held in the RDS recently, they will have seen that the place was chock-a-block with students from all over the country, led predominantly by their career guidance teachers. However, we still have a job of work to do. Recently I met a group of young...

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 agree with the Deputy. The people we are trying to convince do not watch Oireachtas TV. They are on TikTok and Instagram. Thankfully, we have good, young influencers, such as Building Heroes, who have a massive following on Instagram and are encouraging young women to go into apprenticeships and the crafts. We need more of that because not only are influencers telling people about 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: Are we happy? Of course we are not happy when we see the deliberations in the Committee of Public Accounts with Accounting Officers - in this case presidents of universities - and the stuff we are all confronted with as Members of the Oireachtas. Ultimately, the Oireachtas votes the money to our Department and then our Department delegates it to the Higher Education Authority. It then...