Results 681-700 of 6,386 for speaker:James Lawless

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education and Training Provision (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: My Department allocates funding to SOLAS from the Exchequer and the National Training Fund (NTF) to deliver Further Education and Training programmes and services, including eCollege. SOLAS delivers eCollege, which is the national online learning service for FET. It provides a range of courses across digital, information and communication technology (ICT) and business domains. eCollege...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education and Training Provision (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: My officials have been in contact with the Deputy's parliamentary assistant seeking clarification and she will come back to us in the near future.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education Policy (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: Universities, Technological Universities (TUs) and Institutes of Technology (IoTs) have the ability to establish or hold shares in companies under their relevant sectoral legislation. In the case of the Universities Act 1997 (as amended) and the Institutes of Technology Acts, 1992 – 2006 (as amended), Universities and IoT have the ability to establish subsidiaries without requiring...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education Policy (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: Part V of the Disability Act 2005 requires public bodies to report on their compliance regarding the employment of persons with disabilities. My Department assumed responsibility for Part 5 reporting in 2021 and submits its reports to the National Disability Authority each year in respect of the returns for the public bodies under its aegis. In 2022 all public bodies under the aegis of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Grant Payments (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: One of the criteria in the student grant scheme relates to 'progression'. 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 a higher level than the previous course. The objective of this policy is to help as many students as...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education and Training Provision (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: Reply not received from Department.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Funding (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: The provision of Higher Education funding on an annual basis is part of overall expenditure management and budgetary policy for Government. As such, indexing does not apply. In 2025 the planned recurrent grant allocation for the sector totals €1.667 billion. This is an increase of more than €541 million, or 48%, compared to the 2019 outturn in the year prior to the formation...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Early Childhood Care and Education (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: Under the Free Fees Initiative (FFI), the State provides funding toward the tuition fee costs of eligible undergraduate students who are attending approved courses. In the 2023/24 academic year, there were over 143,000 students who benefited from the FFI. Currently FFI approved courses are restricted to full-time undergraduate courses in the public higher education system and a limited...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Funding (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: The Deputy will be aware that Marino Institute of Education (MIE) is a private higher education institution. MIE is not in receipt of core funding from my Department. However, I understand that it receives some limited funding for approved teacher training activities from the Department of Education. MIE is an approved institution for SUSI grants purposes. It is also an approved...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Funding (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: Marino Institute of Education (MIE) is a private higher education institution. MIE is not in receipt of core funding from my Department. However, I understand that it receives some limited funding for approved teacher training activities from the Department of Education. As a private college the day to day operation of the organisation, including issues surrounding campus maintenance and...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education Costs (1 Apr 2025)

James Lawless: The Programme for Government commits to reducing the student contribution in a financially sustainable manner, over the lifetime of this Government. As part of the cost-of-living packages in the last three budgets, the student contribution was reduced by €1,000 on a temporary basis, at a net cost of circa €99 million per annum. These measures were in response to particular cost...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: Or indeed Donogh O'Malley or many others could be referenced in this debate. My party has always prized education and put it to the fore. Education is the bridge to all that we do as an economy and subsequently as a society because it is the private enterprise, created by a successful education system, that creates the public good and the resources that we then use to support the public...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Qualifications Recognition (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: I thank the Deputy. On her last point about the constituent's query, if she wants to send that to my office I will happily take a look at the details of it. I will say, based on prior knowledge before I was ever a Minister in this Department, the Teaching Council has a particular set of requirements. Somebody even within the State may come a cropper - the Deputy mentioned, I think,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Qualifications Recognition (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: On the Deputy's Teaching Council case, I will take the details away but it is not uncommon, unfortunately, that people have different levels of accreditation or recognition within the system, notwithstanding the Teaching Council registration. I am not going to make any comment on the individual's situation. I do not know but if it is of any assistance, I have come across a case in my own...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Qualifications Recognition (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: For which professions?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Qualifications Recognition (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: I think we can because my own sister is a doctor who qualified in Australia and returned to Ireland and is now practising. It is evidently happening, from personal experience. On the wider arrangement, I recently spent time in India on a St. Patrick's Day trade mission. I was engaged on the reciprocal arrangements there, of which there are many. We have a reciprocal arrangement with...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: I thank Deputy Kenny, and I will treat with the programme for Government commitments and the rest later. I would be interested to know whether the Deputy agreed with the rest of my comments in that article because I did talk about targeted supports. I talked about addressing the cost of education and improving access to education. I talked about the existing support schemes and whether...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: I thank the Deputy. We are in a new Government; I am a new Minister. We have had an election. The outworking of that election is a coalition Government. Not every policy of every party is going to be fulfilled. No party won a majority.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: Yes, the programme for Government will be honoured. The programme for Government commits to a reduction in the student contribution fee in a financially sustainable way, which I will do, of course. I am not going to renege on a programme for Government commitment. I am going to follow it fully but how do we do that? Is it abolition, as Deputy Boyd Barrett argues for? That is €1.5...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Student Accommodation (27 Mar 2025)

James Lawless: Indeed. I am actively engaged with the university and will be there again as soon as tomorrow. I hope there will be ongoing engagement into the future.