Results 36,461-36,480 of 46,575 for speaker:Simon Harris

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The purpose of the Student Grant Scheme is to provide additional assistance where parental income is below a certain threshold, or in the case of independent mature students, where the level of income of the student and his or her spouse warrants additional assistance by way of a grant. For student grant purposes, students are categorised according to their circumstances either as...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: Universities are autonomous bodies under the Universities Act 1997, and are therefore administratively independent, including in relation to their accommodation allocation practices. Therefore the information requested by the Deputy would be held by the universities themselves, not by my Department. The synopsis available in the attached table was provided by the Universities for the National...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The enrolment statistics for the 2020/2021 academic year, which will include the statistics in relation to international students, have not yet been published. The HEA will publish these statistics later this year. The financial impact of the pandemic on international students will vary depending on the student, and there is no information available to me on the financial impact on this...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Strategies (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: My Department is committed to keeping its website accessible, in line with the accessibility statement available on gov.ie. My Department uses Plain English online, avoids the use of PDF documents as much as possible, and ensures that all video content produced for use online is captioned. My Department has not developed any mobile applications. My Department does not hold this information...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Strategies (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has put in place a Disability Consultative Committee as mandated under Action 32 of the National Disability and Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021. The Committee held its first meeting in June, with the next meeting scheduled for September.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The Government has committed to planning for a significant increase in onsite attendance in the tertiary education sector in the next academic year. Following consultation with sectoral stakeholders and following Government approval, I published A Safe Return: Plan for a safe return to on-site Further and Higher Education and Research in 2021/22. The Plan reflects the essential...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Covid-19 Pandemic (14 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The processing of US student visas, and the provision of appointments at US Embassies, is solely a matter for the US authorities. Officials in my department have brought this issue to the attention of officials in Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Department of Foreign Affairs have informed us that they have raised the issue with the US Embassy in Dublin, encouraging them to process...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Covid-19 Pandemic (15 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The Government has committed to planning for a significant increase in on-site attendance in the tertiary education sector in the next academic year. Following intensive consultation with sectoral stakeholders and Government approval, I published A Safe Return: Plan for a safe return to on-site Further and Higher Education and Research in 2021/22. The Plan reflects the essential...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Covid-19 Pandemic (15 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: Following the publication of COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery: The Path Ahead and in keeping with the Government’s objective of moving to a return to safe onsite provision in higher and further education, extensive planning has been undertaken by the sectoral stakeholders of the Covid-19 Working Group for the English language education (ELE) sector to prepare for the safe resumption of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Data (15 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: The number of staff in my Department by location and function is set out below. All the offices that my Department occupies are managed by the Office of Public Works (OPW) who has responsibility for renting / leasing of offices and acts as an agent in this regard for Government Departments. As such, the terms, costs and duration of these leases is a matter for the OPW. Location...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Further and Higher Education (15 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: Below is the information requested by the Deputy in relation to the number of full-time students who have taken up Further Education and Training (FET) courses in each county. The information supplied refers to the 2020 calendar year and the county in which the course is delivered.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Accommodation (15 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: As the Deputy is aware, legislation has passed the Oireachtas which restricts the up-front payments required to secure accommodation, including student accommodation, to no more than the equivalent of two months’ rent, and limit payments thereafter to on month’s rent at a time. This Bill was signed into law on the 9th July. My officials met with representatives from the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy and acknowledge, regarding the extra funding, the work and the survey she did, which was helpful and informed much of the discussion. On the accommodation legislation, I welcome the change of legislation. It had cross-party support in the Oireachtas. It does two things. It limits the amount of upfront deposit a renter can be asked for to no more than one month's rent...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: I am saying we all worked at speed across the parties in both Houses of the Oireachtas to pass this legislation to provide protections for students and I would take a grim view of anybody not rigidly applying both the letter and the spirit of the legislation. Many of the issues students have highlighted to me in relation to being asked for many months of rent upfront were from college-owned...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for her constructive engagement on this. We discussed it on the floor of the Dáil on many occasions. I will give the Deputy the latest statistics from SUSI. As of 11 July, more than 80,000 applications have been received from new and returning students, of which 56,000 have been processed and 49,500 of those have been deemed eligible for support. In the last...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: It was great to be back in the west and able to meet people in real life rather than on Zoom. I thank Senator Dolan for her work in highlighting the SUSI review. I can tell her that we received over 250 submissions via the public consultation process from a wide range of organisations, many of which work with students, parents, vulnerable people and people at risk of poverty, with ideas...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: I was delighted to be in Galway last week with the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, for the launch of the active consent programme. We have managed to fund Ireland's first ever digital hub - effectively a website - with resources for staff and students in consent. Sexual harassment is not confined to third level education but third level education should be leading in this area. The...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin for his questions and kind comments about the work of the Department. I thank all of the officials who are trying to build a new Department. While it is not quite being built from scratch, it is taking many functions from the Department of Education and the previous Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, and loading them together at a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: First, I thank Senator O'Reilly very much for making the point better than I did that we are not talking about a reopening of third level because, of course, third level never closed in terms of the delivery of the service. I say that out of respect to the staff and students, who worked in the most extraordinarily difficult circumstances to keep the show on the road. People managed to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Reopening of Further and Higher Education Institutions: Discussion (22 Jul 2021)

Simon Harris: I have read it. I had the honour of saying a few words at the launch of the report yesterday. It is a really good piece of work. I thank Ms Niamh O'Reilly, who heads up AONTAS, and all of the team. They are members of our Covid steering group which meets regularly, generally on a Friday. That is very important, as they are often the voice of community education. We have pretty good...