Results 3,241-3,260 of 17,498 for speaker:Helen McEntee

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 172,500 children, are transported daily in approximately 7,900 vehicles across 10,300 routes to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes over...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: It is an absolute priority to ensure that every child in the State has access to a school place and the Department of Education are continually planning for and investing in existing and new schools to ensure that this is the case. Enrolment pressures can be driven by duplications of applications, applications from outside an area, and school of choice factors. Since 2020, my department...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Patronage (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: As the Deputy will be aware, the Programme for Government commits to seeking to increase choice for parents by ensuring that families can access both Multi or non-denominational and faith based education. Since 2011, new arrangements have been in place for the establishment of new schools involving the forecasting of demand for school places based on demographic exercises carried out by...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: I wish to advise the deputy that all applications from schools for major capital works must be considered in the context of capacity requirements and climate action commitments. The priority of my Department continues to be the provision of required additional school places to meet demographic requirements as well as for children with special educational needs. My Department is required...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school to which the Deputy refers was approved to enter the department’s pipeline of projects under the Additional School Accommodation Scheme. The project will provide for 3 mainstream classrooms, 1 technology room and preparation area, 2 science laboratories and preparation area, 1 design and communications graphics room, 1 art room, 1 multimedia room and a 2 classroom Special...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Devine Mercy JNS & SNS This joint school building project will deliver a new extension and refurbishment of some existing accommodation to provide a 24 classroom primary school with classrooms for children with special educational needs, at both schools. The schedule of accommodation was recently increased to include SEN accommodation and the design options submitted by the Design...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 172,500 children, are transported daily in approximately 7,900 vehicles across 10,300 routes to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes over...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Educational Disadvantage (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Tackling educational disadvantage and supporting students to fulfil their full potential in life is a key priority for me as Minister for Education and Youth and for the Government. As the Deputy will know, the DEIS Programme is a key policy of Government to tackle concentrated educational disadvantage at school level. The DEIS programme provides a targeted range of supports, and is...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 172,500 children, are transported daily in approximately 7,900 vehicles across 10,300 routes to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes over...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Where demographic data indicates that additional provision is required the aim to try and facilitate this, as much as possible, is by way of expansion of existing schools, rather than establishing new schools. The expansion of existing schools is consistent with wider Government objectives under Project Ireland 2040 for an increased emphasis on compact growth. New schools are only...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Curriculum (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Transition Year programme is a valuable optional programme at Senior Cycle. It offers students opportunities for life skills, for personal, social and academic development, and to explore different pathways and gain experience of adult and working life. This year, over 60,000 students are enrolled in TY programmes representing a record level of participation. Since 2018, the number...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: My Department’s voted estimate for capital and current expenditure for 2025 stands at €11.9 Billion. This represents an increase of over €3.2 Billion or 37% since 2020 and builds on significant increases in recent budgets. This is the third largest budget across Government, and the largest ever investment in our schools. This indicates the strong commitment to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Department of Education has been providing a payroll service for former grant funded school secretaries with effect from 1st September 2023. The provision of this payroll service is part of a package agreed with Fórsa, the trade union representing school secretaries, following a series of engagements at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in 2022. The secretaries had previously...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The large scale capital project for the school referred to by the Deputy is the provision of a new 600 pupil school building including all associated ancillary accommodation. The project was originally authorised to proceed to tender, upon completion of the prequalification shortlisting process in September 2022. Planning Permission was due to expire in December 2022 and it was...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: State Examinations (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: I am committed to ensuring that all of our children and young people have the opportunity to reach their full potential. The State Examinations Commission facilitates access to the certificate examinations through its scheme of reasonable accommodations at the certificate examinations. The purpose of the RACE scheme is to allow candidates who have special educational needs to demonstrate...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school to which the Deputy refers was approved to enter the department’s pipeline for a project under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) Scheme. The project will provide 9 Mainstream classrooms (6 Prefab replacement) and a 2 Classroom SEN base. The Stage 2b Report was received in Q4 of 2024 and remains under review from both a technical and cost perspective in accordance...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Teacher Training (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Oide is the new support service for teachers and school leaders, funded by the Department of Education. Oide’s post-primary subject teams offer professional learning and resources to support teachers to include all learners in their classrooms, including those students who engage with L1LPs & L2LPs. The Post-Primary Inclusive Education team offers professional learning on...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (27 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The purpose of the Emergency Works Scheme (EWS) is to provide funding specifically for unforeseen emergencies. It does so by ensuring the availability of funding for urgent works to those schools that are in need of resources as a result of an emergency situation. An emergency is deemed to be a situation which poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or the environment, which...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (27 Feb 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. My Department regularly consults with key stakeholders to address critical issues like teacher supply. Further measures to strengthen the teaching workforce are being...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (27 Feb 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. As with other sectors, recruitment challenges exist in some schools. To address teacher supply issues, my Department has implemented several measures that have led to: an increase of 20% in Initial...