Results 4,061-4,080 of 17,531 for speaker:Jan O'Sullivan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: What we are trying to do is ensure that the children and schools that most need the resources actually get them. Everybody here knows that, in some cases, people have to pay for private assessments in order to get supports in schools. That is clearly unfair to families and schools that do not have access to very much money. That is one of the main reasons the new model has been proposed....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: That is a very fair request. It is something we want to do. I draw attention to a document, which I presume is available on our website, called Ireland's Education and Training Sector: Overview of Service Delivery and Reform. It contains many facts and figures but we need to give them in a format whereby-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Deputy Charlie McConalogue and Senator Mary Moran have a fair point on NEPS, which I acknowledge. The reason there was a target for access for schools is that we had not reached 100%. We are not proud that every single school did not have access to NEPS, and that is why the target exists. It is a target but the more important issue is the one both members raised, namely, that there should...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Output. The question is a fair one. The legislation is in draft form at present. The Office of the Attorney General is engaging with our Department on finalising it and I expect it will be ready to publish within the next month. We want to get it into the Oireachtas as soon as possible. Obviously, it is important to those parts of the country that aspire to giving their institution...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: There are many other issues also, as members know.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I can go through it quickly. I do not want to take up too much time for the committee.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I will go through it fairly quickly. The Minister of State, Deputy English, and I thank the committee for the opportunity to be here. I want to give a brief opening statement on the other element of the meeting. For the mid-year review of 2015 expenditure, the briefing slides we have provided to the committee present the expenditure position to the middle of August 2015, together with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: To clarify, is the Senator referring to current or capital expenditure?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Deputy Cannon asked about the capital programme. We will continue the prefab programme. In the existing programme the focus was mostly on the rented prefabs but we will now move on to the prefabs that have been bought. We have to approach the schools and put it to them that we would replace the prefabs. In cases where a new building will be built, automatically the prefabs will be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Yes, it is confusing, but that is what it was. The total for Grangegorman was €40 million in 2014. The total amount spent to date is €57.5 million. Some €5.5 million has been spent in this year to date. There is €25 million allocated for 2015, so there is more money to be spent this year. We will need to allocate more money in future years from the capital...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I think we are estimating another €40 million, but it is a PPP so there are different streams of funding. In can clarify this for the Senator, but I think we estimated about a further €40 million from the State. I might not be right on that so I had better come back to the Senator. About 1,000 students transferred on to the campus in September 2014. It is a very big project...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: The Senator asked me to outline where I consider the best spending to be in terms of return.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Personally I think it is best used in the early years and primary school. If we do not invest in children when they are young they will not be able to follow what we are trying to teach them when they get a bit older. The money spent on DEIS is also very well spent but we are carrying out a review at the moment to make sure that it is. Some schools that did not qualify for DEIS designation...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: It will be in the course of the current academic year, so we should have it before next summer.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Every political party in the State would claim we do not spend enough on preschool and early years-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: When I talk about DEIS, I am talking about school-age children.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: No, I have some others. I will move on. We can have a further discussion on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I believe I have answered Senator Craughwell's question about PPP schools. He also asked me about IT costs. We will publish the digital strategy very shortly. That will look at the area of IT and how best to spend the money there in order to keep up with changing hardware, software, etc., in that area. Senator Moloney asked about school meals and the DEIS review that I just mentioned; I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: There might be money that was allocated for a particular purpose and there was still money there at the end of the year. So it has to come in and go back out, if the Senator knows what I mean. I believe I have covered everything apart from school transport. I think the Minister of State might also want to say something about the area of research.