Results 15,101-15,120 of 15,994 for speaker:Helen McEntee

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Major Building Project for the school referred to by the Deputy is at an advanced stage of architectural planning Stage 2b – Detailed Design, which includes the application for all statutory consents, including Planning Permission, Disability Access Certification and Fire Safety Certification and the preparation of the Tender documentation. All statutory consents have been secured....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Special Educational Needs (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 172,500 children, are transported daily in approximately 7,900 vehicles across 10,300 routes to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes over...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Discipline (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: I propose to take Questions Nos. 803 and 804 together. Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) is under the remit of my Department. TESS operates under the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000, a piece of legislation that emphasises the promotion of school attendance, participation and retention. TESS has three strands namely the statutory Educational Welfare Service (EWS) and the two school...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: My Department has a very significant capital programme that is providing additional capacity around the country, underpinned by a robust forward planning process. Since 2020, my Department has invested over €5.8 billion in our schools, involving the completion of over 1,300 school building projects. Additionally, my officials work very closely with schools and patrons to ensure that...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Correspondence (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: 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 such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general up-keep, and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The large scale capital project at the school referred to by the Deputy is at an advanced stage of Architectural Planning Stage 3 - Tender Action and Award. Department officials are working with the Design Team and the school authority to resolve the remaining issues in response to the Tender Report. The large scale capital project remains a priority for delivery and my department...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: This joint school building project for the projects referred to by the Deputy will deliver a new extension and refurbishment of some existing accommodation to provide a 24 classroom primary school with classrooms for children with special educational needs, at both schools. The schedule of accommodation was recently increased to include SEN accommodation and the design options submitted by...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: My department is leading an ambitious sustainability agenda and has progressed a wide array of measures to improve the overall sustainability of our school buildings as part of our work towards 2030 and 2050 climate targets. This performance has been recognised at both National and International level with sustainable energy awards for excellence in design, specification and delivery. My...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: As the Deputy is aware, in December 2024 it was announced that €12 million in funding was to be provided for a new Science Implementation Support Grant. The grant was paid to all schools in the Free Education Scheme in line with other Departmental approaches such as the Post-primary Schoolbooks Scheme. Outside of teacher salaries, which are paid directly by my Department, the main...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The purpose of the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and Special Education Needs (SEN) accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation. At primary level, this situation generally arises to cater for a school’s accommodation...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The purpose of the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and Special Education Needs (SEN) accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation. The consideration of any applications on hand for the ASA scheme form part of the Planning and...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Correspondence (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: A statement of commitments contained within my Department’s Customer Charter can be found on gov.ie at the following link: The Customer Charter underpins our approach to quality customer service and the commitments contained within this Charter set out acknowledgement and response timelines for correspondence received in the Department.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Correspondence (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: Principals can directly contact the business units within my department through the 52 helplines and general contact numbers that are used to manage requests for information and follow up queries. Contact details for my department’s business units are detailed at gov.ie- About the Department of Education (). When publishing circulars, my department includes the direct unit contact...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: Please find attached requested data . Data supplied is for academic year 2023-2024, as this is the latest year we have final enrolment data. We expect to publish final enrolment data for academic year 2024-2025 in June 2025. The primary data includes all pupils by standard in each school, please note that special pupils can also be assigned a mainstream standard by the school. ...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year, over 172,500 children, are transported daily in approximately 7,900 vehicles across 10,300 routes daily to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes over...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The 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 such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general up-keep, and the ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education Standards (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: 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 ensured that results in the aggregate have remained the same on...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Reports (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Report of the Scoping Inquiry into Historical Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools Run by Religious Orders recommended the establishment of a Commission of Investigation as its principal recommendation and this has been accepted by Government. The Report of the Scoping Inquiry made a number of further recommendations and a high level Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) was convened to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school referred to by the Deputy was approved to enter the departments pipeline of school buildings for a project to provide 4 SET/Pastoral Rooms, 1 Multi-Media room, 1 Music Room, 1 Textiles Room, 1 Art Room, Project store, 3 SEN Class Base, and reconfiguration works to existing Multimedia Room to revert to 1 Mainstream Classroom. The project has been devolved for delivery to the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Funding (29 Apr 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Department of Education, along with other Departments across the public service, implemented the outcome of the public service-wide review of allowances and premium payments (September 2012) by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. This meant that many allowances were no longer payable to “new entrants” including Teachers. Among the allowances that had sanction...