Results 38,001-38,020 of 46,575 for speaker:Simon Harris

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education and Training Provision (4 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I propose to take Questions Nos. 344 to 350, inclusive, together. Ireland’s overall approach to skills and training is outlined in the National Skills Strategy 2016 - 2025 (NSS) which is designed to benefit all people living in Ireland. It recognises that skills policy is an area of enormous importance - informing how people in Ireland live, work, learn and thrive. The development...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education and Training Provision (4 May 2022)

Simon Harris: The Programme for Government commits the Department of Health to working with the education sectors, regulators, and professional bodies to improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.  My Department is strongly committed to supporting the health of the population through the provision of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Research Funding (4 May 2022)

Simon Harris: “Public-public research partnerships” in this context are taken to mean partnerships which have formal Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) in place and are actively supporting research projects.  The involvement of research stakeholders including the public, patients, public policy makers, public service users in research development and implementation is crucial to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Staff (4 May 2022)

Simon Harris: There is currently one staff member from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science seconded to the university third level sector.  This secondment pre-dated the establishment of my Department and is on the basis of two days per week to University College Cork.  Salary costs associated with this part time, temporary secondment are recouped back...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Apprenticeship Programmes (4 May 2022)

Simon Harris: My Department has been advised by SOLAS that the request from the Deputy with regard to the percentage and total number of both craft and consortia-led apprentices that will access off-the-job training in 2022 and the anticipated figures for 2023, is complex and has two parts for both pre and post 2016. SOLAS will require some more time to consider fully the data request. Due to the fact that...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: EU Directives (4 May 2022)

Simon Harris: The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science was established in 2020 and since that date no fines have been issued by the EU on the Department for failing to transpose EU Directives. However, there is one Directive that is yet to be transposed into Irish law; Directive 2018/958/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 June 2018 on a...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Pharmacy Services (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: The Programme for Government commits the Department of Health to working with the education sectors, regulators, and professional bodies to improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.  My Department is strongly committed to supporting the health of the population through the provision of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Third Level Education (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: The Programme for Government commits the Department of Health to working with the education sectors, regulators, and professional bodies to improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.  My Department is strongly committed to supporting the health of the population through the provision of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Chair for the invitation. It is good the committee will be hearing from me and then directly afterwards from the USI, IUA and THEA because my experience of working on these issues around gender equality has very much been one of partnership right across the sector. I hope we can begin to knit together a full picture and range of views on these important issues. Before I begin I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I fully agree with Deputy Cannon. I realise he knows about this matter from his time in what was the Department of Education and Skills, his work on CoderDojo and his interest in this whole area. I could list out all we are doing at third level, as I did in my opening statement, but the Deputy is entirely correct that these decisions are made by young girls long before they get to third...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Clarke. I will get her Twitch in a minute. I find myself in agreement with much of what she has said. On the issue of lone parents, while I do not need to mansplain this in any way to the Deputy, she is right that we have made progress. That is a statement of fact. In truth, there are now more people from diverse and different backgrounds entering higher education. The...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank Senator Warfield. I am in clear agreement on the need to have fact and evidence-based impartial information delivered in an age-appropriate manner in primary and secondary schools in Ireland. What you learn or do not learn about these issues cannot be the luck of the draw or down to the ethos of the school or where you live. That causes great societal difficulties. I remember...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: Yes. My Department is getting on with it. My Department is rolling out and ramping out consent classes, training and funding. We have a national advisory group, chaired by the National Women's Council of Ireland, that advises me. We are getting on with it. I am also saying, because it would be disingenuous to say anything else to this committee, that the process must start much earlier...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I will be brief in the interests of time. Precarious employment is a real challenge in the third level sector. To address it we must fund the sector properly and look at the employment control framework. We have student-staff ratios in this country of approximately 20:1 and the European norm is 14:1 or 15:1. We announced €307 million in funding yesterday to plug the gap in core...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I do not want to use the Deputy's time but I acknowledge her own consistent advocacy of fact-based and evidence-based sex education in schools. I agree entirely on that point. I will take back the view to the wider government on how this work might be done contemporaneously rather than sequentially. There is a logic in what she says. The Minister for Education will be able to articulate...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I fully agree with Deputy Carroll MacNeill about the need to do more for lone parents. As I said to Deputy Clarke, we have objectively made progress but that is not to suggest the journey is complete because it is not. I believe in the reforms we intend to introduce around SUSI, the student grant system, including the removal of poverty traps - that may or not be the right phrase - whereby...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (5 May 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Senator and fully agree with what she has said about lone parents. The SUSI grant is a part of the equation but I would hate anyone to think it is the totality of how we improve access because it is not. I base my comments on what lone parents and students have told me about their experiences. There are related issues that are well outside the remit of my Department. I am...