Results 721-740 of 20,682 for speaker:Mary Hanafin
- School Curriculum. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: I am committed to ensuring that we increase the standards of science and the facilities available to its teaching in our schools. Before Christmas I allocated capital funding for schools for science and science teaching. Equally, some of the proposals involve extraordinary expense though they would no doubt be very valuable, such as the employment of school laboratory assistants, which would...
- School Curriculum. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: My aim is to progress as many of the recommendations as possible. A day may come when we can employ laboratory assistants in schools but it has not yet arrived. it would not be appropriate to say we will not employ them when I hope some day we will.
- School Curriculum. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: It depends on the budgetary facilities each year. Currently there are more pressing needs but as those needs are met we might be able to divert funding elsewhere.
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: The allocation to the schools building and modernisation programme for 2005 amounts to â¬493 million of which â¬270 million is being allocated to schools at primary level and â¬223 million to post-primary level. This represents an increase of 14% on last year's allocation. The programme is underpinned not only by a significant increase in overall funding but also by major improvements in...
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: The document referred to will be available for all to see, as it was before. It is being done in stages. The only information currently available relates to the 122 projects at the top of the list, ready to go to tender, to go on site and proceed towards construction. The next list will be of the small and rural schools projects and the permanent accommodation projects which I hope to...
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: No. We carried forward the exact amount we were allowed. No capital funding was lost. We were allowed to carry forward â¬50 million and we did so. Quite a number of bills arrived towards the end of the year, as they tend to, but nothing was lost. The lessons learned from the delays last year are helping me to feed into the process this year for the building programme to ensure we have enough...
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: My colleague, the Minister for Finance, provided a capital envelope of â¬555 million in respect of education PPPs for the period 2005-08. My officials are examining how this may be best utilised. A number of issues will have to be determined before I make a decision on the allocation of these funds. Those include the type of PPP model to be used, the level of operation and service to be...
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: The cost of the schools can really only be ascertained over the long term. The chances are that the schools now built under PPP would not yet have been built otherwise, meaning the costs would have gone up in the meantime. There is no doubt that they are state-of-the-art schools with superb facilities, but were we to start building them now, which is probably about right, they would cost us a...
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: Regarding community use, the idea is that the school becomes a community asset. Under the terms of the project agreement, it is the operator who can market the school premises to generate income. The agreement provides that schools each have access to the premises for 350 hours outside the normal school day, which is quite substantial. Initially, the schools thought that 150 hours would be...
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: They are marketing the facility.
- Schools Building Projects. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: That is among the matters that we want to examine in the next bundle, but it is currently outside the control of school management.
- Special Educational Needs. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: In February 1999, the Government decided to establish the national educational psychological service with delegated authority to develop and provide an educational psychological service to all students who need it in primary and post-primary schools and in other relevant centres supported by my Department. The Government also agreed that NEPS should be established in the first instance on an...
- Special Educational Needs. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: One difficulty that could be identified is that not all psychologists are willing to work in all areas, and it is becoming difficult to recruit psychologists to work in particular areas throughout the country. They are now working to try to target their recruitment and let people know in advance where they will be working to meet the needs in those areas. That is the reason the scheme has...
- Special Educational Needs. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: My understanding is that the panel has been exhausted. I do not know about the individual case regarding Inishowen but I would be happy to check that for the Deputy, as I will do in respect of the cross-Border facility. The island is too small for us to ignore the services and expertise that might be available one to the other.
- Special Educational Needs. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: NEPS personnel will continue to be responsible for the psychological assessment because that is their professional background. SENOs will work closely with the school in determining whether NEPS or the health board is needed, whether other services and facilities should be brought on board, and examining in particular the allocation of resource hours for the higher incidence people.
- Higher Education Access. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: During 2004, the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities, CHIU, indicated to my Department and the Higher Education Authority that the seven universities were considering the introduction of an alternative entry process whereby leaving certificate students whose family hold a medical card could apply for a higher education place through a separate process from the general points system....
- Higher Education Access. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: Deputy O'Sullivan has hit the nail on the head. We have asked them to indicate whether these will be additional places because it is not quite clear. To be honest, I doubt that they are additional because I am sure those already included in the 590 are people who would have medical cards. The medical card alone is too narrow a criterion because the way it works is that other indicators are...
- Higher Education Access. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: Perhaps I am being presumptuous in suggesting that Deputy O'Sullivan almost agrees that medical card might be too narrow a criterion. We must examine all the other areas. I attended the national access conference in Kilkenny where I met one of the students who was from a very disadvantaged background in Cork. He was trying to work his way through the system based on grants but he told me that...
- Higher Education Access. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: He wants to be one of the ones paying tax.
- School Accommodation. (3 Feb 2005)
Mary Hanafin: The school to which the Deputy refers is an all-Irish primary school serving the west Dublin area. As the Deputy is aware, the area in question experienced rapid development in recent years requiring a significant number of interventions by my Department to ensure that emerging demands for extra school accommodation were met. These interventions comprised a combination of the expansion of...