Results 14,801-14,820 of 15,994 for speaker:Helen McEntee

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Irish Sign Language (9 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I would like to thank the Deputy for the question and would like to advise the following: Supporting the provision of appropriate education for children with additional needs is a key priority for the Department of Education. There is a longstanding existing provision in place to support children in mainstream settings where Irish Sign Language (ISL) is their primary language. The...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Administration (9 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: Schools, as independent entities are managed by the Board of Management. The Department does not have information of schools billed by Uisce Éireann. My Department is committed to providing funding to recognised primary and post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day-to-day running costs...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Insurance Coverage (9 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I wish to inform the Deputy that schools are not restricted to one particular insurance company with regards to public liability insurance. Schools must work with their school management and school Patron to ensure there is suitable insurance cover in place.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (9 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The large scale capital project for the school referred to by the Deputy is the provision of a new 600 pupil school building including all associated ancillary accommodation. The project was originally authorised to proceed to tender, upon completion of the prequalification shortlisting process in September 2022. Planning Permission was due to expire in December 2022 and it was...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: State Examinations (9 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I propose to take Questions Nos. 125, 126 and 127 together. Following the implementation of calculated grades in 2020 and the dual approach of examinations and accredited grades in 2021, two types of intervention have been implemented in recent years: adjustments to examination and assessments arrangements, and a post-marking adjustment to outcomes. This post-marking adjustment has...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (9 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The criteria for the award of incremental credit are set out in the Department of Education’s Circulars 10/2001 for Primary teachers, and 29/2007 and 29/2010 for Post-Primary teachers. The criteria for the award of incremental credit to recognised teachers was agreed under the auspices of the Teachers Conciliation Council (TCC). These circulars provide for the award of incremental...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I thank Deputy Doherty for raising this question. We have all been utterly appalled by the information we received and that we have been made aware of this week. As the Deputy mentioned, the information in the HIQA report sets out very clearly that a number of springs that were not medically approved were implanted into the bodies of three small children. The springs were corrosive and...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Government is not a spectator here. This issue was brought to attention in September 2023. The Department of Health was notified the year after and a subsequent review is taking place and is at an advanced stage. The number of people who have been contacted is increasing. There is further work under way, through an action plan that is currently being drafted, to try to identify any...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: Similar to the previous question, the priority for all of us here, and this Government, is to make sure children are safe, be it online or offline or in their homes, bedrooms, communities and schools. It is an absolute priority to make sure children are protected. The world we live in is changing and for young people the world of online, social media and technology is part and parcel of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: From the Government's perspective, our view, my view and the view of the Minister for communications is that the era of self-regulation is over and it has to be over. The Online Safety Commissioner needs to ensure - I know that she will - that our strategies and the commission's strategies focus on what is actually happening here and that includes algorithms. I fully agree with the Deputy...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. At the outset I acknowledge his role and leadership in the previous Government in supporting the previous Government so that Ireland was to the fore in supporting Palestine and supporting a two-state solution while calling for the unconditional release of hostages. However, I utterly reject his assertion that this Government has in any way changed...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: It is in the programme for Government and we have said very clearly that we will implement it. The Tánaiste will meet with Senator Black in the coming days. Senator Black is the Member of the Seanad who brought forward this Bill. She is very clear that we need to get this right and that this is not straightforward. The Deputy is right: it is because of the ruling of the ICJ that the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The knee-jerk reaction or response to anything that goes wrong - to call for people to be sacked or removed from a board - does not help anybody. It does not actually change the fact that we need to make progress, that we need people in place to be able to make sure the children's hospital can open, and that we need to make sure any recommendations coming from the reports we have discussed...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: There will certainly be no timeframe if the Deputy wants the entire board sacked and removed. We would have to replace them and then make sure that progress can somehow continue without a board. We cannot make progress in opening any hospital bed, opening any acute hospital or having any surgery in the new hospital if we do not have a board. Let us be realistic here. What do we have to do?

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: We have to act on the facts that we know.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: A report that was commissioned by HIQA clearly states that children were operated on with medical devices that should not have been used. We are acting. The persons responsible - we all have responsibility here in this House - including those who carried out the operations and those who decided to have operations on young children who did not need them, have to be held accountable too, and...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: It is not going to help a single person the Deputy has mentioned.

Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and acknowledge the huge amount of work he has done in bringing autism to the fore and ensuring it is firmly front and centre on the Government agenda. The programme for Government clearly sets out and clearly prioritises the need to implement an autism innovation strategy and put it on a statutory footing, so that something will always be there and...

Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Deputy is right in that we need to be better at forward planning and to do better. That is why, this year, we are about 40% ahead of where we were this time last year. That is why I intend that, by this time next year, we will have identified children and have children who know exactly where they will be going to school. It has to be the case that every single child is treated equally....

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (10 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I reassure the Deputy and, most important, the parents and their children that the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and I, working with the NCSE and the Department, will ensure the children have school places come September and do everything possible to make sure those places, in so far as it is possible, are within the children’s communities and that they have the right resources...