Results 501-520 of 616 for speaker:Grace Boland
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: I thank the witnesses for attending. I apologise I have a competing meeting at the same time. Unfortunately, I was in there and ran in here. I apologise for missing their opening remarks and if I repeat the previous questions. As a mum of eight-year-old twin girls and as a TD representing one of the youngest areas in the country with Balbriggan being the youngest and most culturally...
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: What is the issue there? The child should be front and centre. Dr. Muldoon is right, and I see it in the representations I engage in every day. The Departments of education and children are not talking. It is not joined up. What is the internal barrier?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: It showed the opposite.
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: I am watching the clock.
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: In the short time I have left, I want to ask about the UN convention. What is the impediment? Why have we not moved forward with it?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: That money could be better spent on actually investing in the services.
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: As a lawyer, I absolutely know how expensive those cases are.
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: Will that be shortly?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: Are there other countries like Ireland that have incorporated the UN convention?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: In looking at the priority recommendations, I noted one was to keep the child poverty and well-being programme office and address the disproportionate impact of poverty on marginalised children. We have recently seen again the commentary about the huge number of children – I think the highest ever – in poverty. Where is that office now and what is the plan for the future?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: Has the unit been retained indefinitely?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: Good. I attended a briefing with Tusla yesterday on foster care. I heard from some of the fantastic foster care parents and their passion and commitment. The issue of the income supports being applied to foster parents was brought up. There is a concern around the means test. Children in foster care are hugely vulnerable. As a parent, I know how expensive children are. I do not believe...
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: That is good to hear. When Dr. Muldoon meets the Minister in the next couple of weeks, what are his top three asks?
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: On issues around mental health and disability, we need to see therapies much earlier. What can happen is children become disengaged and disenfranchised from the school system and from authority. It also affects their self-worth, their self-confidence and their mental health. That only creates societal issues. Apart from having more therapists, which we are all agreed on and we hope we...
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: Primary and secondary.
- Committee on Children and Equality: Engagement with Office of the Ombudsman for Children (26 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: Primary and secondary schools?
- Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Special Educational Needs (25 Jun 2025)
Grace Boland: 82. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to outline all schools in the Swords area, as of June 2025, that will be providing special classes for the 2025/2026 school year; the number of classes that will be provided by each respective school; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34719/25]