Results 101-120 of 33,688 for speaker:Simon Harris in 'Written Answers'

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Accommodation (22 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: Last month, I received Government approval for my Department's long-term student accommodation policy approach. The long term vision is to ensure that availability of student accommodation and digs do not act as a barrier to accessing higher education. This policy aims to enable options to mitigate demand for accommodation given the increased accessibility of HEIs across the regions through...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Public Sector Pensions (21 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: I remain strongly of the view that research staff in all higher education institutions across the sector should be able to access a public service pension scheme. As outlined in previous responses, my officials have submitted a business case to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan and Reform to support access to the single public service pension scheme for those...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Fees (21 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The Deputy will be aware that Higher Education Institutions are autonomous bodies; responsible for assessing student applications and determining the tuition fee payable by individual students. In this regard, as the Deputy will appreciate, it is not possible for my Department to offer guidance on the fee arrangements that may apply for individual students, such as those that may apply in the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Medical Research and Training (21 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: I propose to take Questions Nos. 180 and 181 together. As the Deputy is aware the delivery of medical programmes is complex. The course content of medical programmes and curriculum followed is a matter for the individual medical schools and the regulator, the Medical Council. The Medical Council sets and monitors standards for undergraduate, and postgraduate medical programmes and the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Accommodation (21 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien and I have asked our officials to engage on the decision of private student accommodation providers to move to 51-week leases. We recognise that while there may be a market for 51 week leases among some members of the student population, it is not desirable for the vast majority of third level students. We are working...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Ministerial Staff (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The information in relation to the number of hours driven by each of the civilian drivers assigned to the Minister of State in 2023 is being collated and will be forwarded to the Deputy as soon as it becomes available. As previous advised to Deputy, I do not have any civilian drivers. Responsibility for provision of Ministerial transport and the specific arrangements relating to it are a...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: I propose to take Questions Nos. 642 and 643 together. Expanding the number of places available on Health and Social Care Profession (HSCP) programmes is a priority for my Department. In July 2023, Minister Donnelly and I announced over 400 additional permanent places across HSCP related programmes from September 2023. This included five places on the Radiation Therapy programme in...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Artificial Intelligence (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: My Department currently provides data and computing power to the research and academic community across many fields by funding the Irish Centre for High-End Computing as well as research and education bodies with their own computing facilities, and through membership of the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking. The Irish Centre for High End Computing (ICHEC) provides...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Research and Development (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: Membership of the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) has directly benefited Irish SMEs. In particular EuroHPC has financially supported the SME Accelerator programme at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing under the European High-Performance Computing Competence Centre (EuroCC) initiative. EuroCC is an initiative by the Joint Undertaking to build a...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Research and Development (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: Membership of the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC) has directly benefited the Irish research community. Working with Participating States, EuroHPC has built a world-leading ecosystem of supercomputers and related infrastructure in Europe. Through EuroHPC Ireland’s research community can access a number of world-class supercomputers far more powerful than...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Grant Payments (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: Only in exceptional cases can candidates who are under 23 be assessed without reference to their parents/guardians income or address, Article 21(3)(b) of the Student Grant Scheme refers. The assessment of a case of estrangement is carefully considered to ensure there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the exceptional circumstances pertaining in such cases genuinely exists. The...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Apprenticeship Programmes (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The full list of craft apprenticeships, along with the latest taught version of the syllabus of each programme; the date it was first published; the date of last review by QQI, is attached. The information which was being collated by SOLAS is now available and is set out in the attached table. As you will note from the table, 15 of 25 craft programme syllabi have proposed roll-outs in 2024....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Grant Payments (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The Deputy’s question would be more appropriately directed to the Minister of the Environment, Climate and Communications as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) operates under the aegis of that Department.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Accommodation (20 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: There has been no direct financial supports provided to purpose built student accommodation providers between 2000 and 2022 inclusive. The difficulties being faced by students in accessing affordable accommodation is something this Government is committed to addressing. In November 2022, I received Government approval and support for proposals to increase the supply of student...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Fees (13 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The Deputy will be aware that Budget 2024 contains a package of measures to support households with the cost of living. These cost of living measures include the provision of one off funding to reduce the student contribution fee payable by higher education students that are eligible for the free fees initiative (FFI), in academic year 2023/24, by €1,000. In relation to the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Accommodation (13 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien and I have asked our officials to engage on the decision of private student accommodation providers to move to 51-week leases. While there may be a market for 51 week leases among some members of the student population, it is not desirable for the vast majority of the student population. We have asked our officials to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Further and Higher Education (13 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The Medical Council is the regulator of the medical profession in Ireland. The Medical Council sets and monitors standards for undergraduate, and postgraduate medical programmes and the bodies that deliver them to ensure that curricula are in line with Medical Council rules, criteria, standards and guidelines. I am not aware of any proposals to upgrade the Graduate Entry Medicine...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Further and Higher Education (13 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: The main support available to students is the statutory based Student Grant Scheme where students are studying for the first time or are progressing to study at a higher level. This means that a student must be moving from year to year within a course, having successfully completed the previous year or be transferring from one course to another, where the award for the subsequent course is of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Technological Universities (8 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: As requested, tabular data on the monies dispersed under the Technological Sector Advancement Fund is laid out below: Technological University TSAF Allocations and Year 1 Payments Institution TSAF Allocation TSAF Year 1 Payments ATU €8,500,000 €5,528,390 MTU €7,500,000...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Construction Industry (7 Feb 2024)

Simon Harris: A key Government priority is to increase the number of people employed in the construction sector. This is essential to the Government meeting its ambitious targets under Housing for All. The CSO Labour force survey of Q3 2023 shows when compared with pre-Covid levels of Q4 2019 the total employment in the sector has grown by 20,400 (+14%). DFHERIS works with sectoral partners to increase...