Results 1-20 of 1,125,120 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Peadar Tóibín OR speaker:Marc MacSharry OR speaker:Joe O'Brien OR speaker:Violet-Anne Wynne OR speaker:Thomas Byrne OR speaker:Thomas Byrne2 OR speaker:Norma Foley OR speaker:Peter Fitzpatrick OR speaker:Pádraig O'Sullivan OR speaker:Michael Collins OR speaker:Kathleen Funchion OR speaker:Johnny Guirke OR speaker:Matt Carthy OR speaker:Paul McAuliffe OR speaker:Brendan Griffin OR speaker:Ossian Smyth OR speaker:Dessie Ellis OR speaker:Dara Calleary OR speaker:Darren O'Rourke OR speaker:Johnny Mythen OR speaker:Alan Farrell OR speaker:Martin Heydon OR speaker:Michael Lowry OR speaker:Brendan Howlin OR speaker:Thomas Gould OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Stephen Donnelly OR speaker:Duncan Smith OR speaker:Michael Fitzmaurice OR speaker:Helen McEntee OR speaker:James Lawless OR speaker:Robert Troy OR speaker:Jim O'Callaghan OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:Gino Kenny OR speaker:Catherine Murphy OR speaker:Jack Chambers OR speaker:Seán Canney OR speaker:Denise Mitchell OR speaker:Mick Barry OR speaker:Sorca Clarke)

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Apologies have been received from the Cathaoirleach, Deputy Paul Kehoe. I remind members and officials to please ensure mobile phones are switched off for the duration of the meeting as they interfere with broadcasting equipment, even when on silent mode. This meeting has been convened to consider the Supplementary Estimates for Vote 26, education, which has been referred to this committee...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach. I begin by wishing the Chairman a speedy recovery. I am pleased to be here this morning together with officials from my Department. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak with its members and ask for their consideration of the Department's Supplementary Estimates for 2024. Following approval by the Government, the Department is...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Sorca Clarke: I thank the Minister and I welcome her and her officials. My questions cover a number of different areas, so I do not know if she wants to take them as a block or one by one. Will the Minister outline to the committee what impact, if any, the Supplementary Estimate will have on the pay and conditions of school secretaries and caretakers? Will she also outline what, if any, impact the...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: On school secretaries and caretakers, the Deputy will be aware that all school secretaries who were keen to come onto the payroll of the Department of Education have now signed up and crossed over. They are now automatically paid by the Department of Education as distinct from receiving payment from their school board or through grants received by the board. I gave a commitment that a...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Sorca Clarke: The school transport funding costs and subhead A15.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: Yes. As regards school transport, a number of recommendations came out of the review of school transport. A phased implementation of the review has begun, and that includes the pilot projects. We have funding in place to continue the pilot projects and add to them. Our ambition is, as we have outlined previously to this committee, to ensure that by 2030 we will have a further 100,000...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Sorca Clarke: On subhead A15, infrastructure.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: Mr. Loftus is very keen to cover that one.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: If I might interrupt, officials cannot address select committee meetings. I apologise. I ask the Minister to address the matter.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: I was giving the committee the opportunity to hear from the head of planning and building. The subhead is used to fund school accommodation. This is A15: to buy sites, deliver smaller scale works in schools, provide furniture and equipment and address remediation works. The current allocation subhead provides for grants towards rental of temporary school premises at primary and...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Sorca Clarke: I am conscious-----

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: We are well over time. Does the Deputy want to ask a very short supplementary question?

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Sorca Clarke: It is just that it seems such a broad heading. I ask, through the Chair, that the Department come back with a greater breakdown of what it is. "Infrastructure" is a very general term.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: By infrastructure, we mean school buildings, really, specifically the project roll-out of those school buildings. I am very happy to come back-----

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Sorca Clarke: Yes, but the Minister also said "remediation works". Equipment and furniture are mentioned here.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The Minister might be able to come back to the Deputy with a detailed breakdown.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: Yes, absolutely.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Jim O'Callaghan: I welcome the Minister and her officials before the committee. What appears to be the most significant part of the Supplementary Estimates is the significant additional capital allocation of €517 million in respect of the schools building programme. I very much welcome the significant activity on the part of the programme, not just in my constituency but throughout the country. The...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Norma Foley: We have a forward planning unit within the Department and it is very successful. We now liaise with local authorities, for example, on their future projections. We also gather all the data that is necessary. It is a GIS system. We engage with child benefit and so on. As regards the figures we are talking about here, we have currently 350 projects on the ground at construction, and the...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (22 Oct 2024)

Jim O'Callaghan: How is the school building unit doing in terms of projects coming in on time and on budget? Sometimes we only hear of capital developments by the State that do not come in on time and on budget, but am I correct in saying very many of them do come in on time and on budget?