Results 2,001-2,020 of 3,895 for speaker:John Halligan

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Student Grant Scheme Eligibility (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: The Student Grant Scheme supported approximately 81,500 students in the academic year 2015/16 at a cost of circa €380 million. Under the student grant scheme, eligible candidates may receive funding, provided they are attending an approved course at an approved institution and meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those which relate to nationality, residency,...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Apprenticeship Programmes (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: As the Deputy will be aware, the route to an apprenticeship is through gaining employment with an approved employer. A campaign to promote apprenticeship is currently being developed by SOLAS in consultation with key partners including the Apprenticeship Council. The campaign will raise awareness and promote the value of apprenticeship for individual apprentices and for employers and it...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport Administration (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: The purpose of my Department's School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school. School Transport is a very significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of my Department. In the region of 113,000 children, including some 10,000 children with special...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport Administration (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: The Deputy is aware that Bus Éireann has advised my Department that in response to the expressed wishes of many school bus drivers - both Bus Éireann and private contractor school bus drivers - who wanted to remain in the position upon reaching retirement age at sixty-five years, and following the advice of their Medical Department, the Company decided to alter the compulsory...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport Eligibility (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Changes to the School Transport Schemes, including the 'Closed School Rule (CSR)', were announced in Budget 2011 and derived from recommendations in the Value for Money Review of the Scheme. From the commencement of the 2011/12 school year the distance eligibility criterion of 3.2 kilometres was applied nationally to all children travelling under the primary school transport scheme, including...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: The reference to contract maintenance as referred to by the Deputy relates to the overall activities undertaken by Bus Éireann as opposed to the specific services provided under the School Transport Scheme. My Department is satisfied that the financial accounting for Bus Éireann's operation of the School Transport Scheme, including the Bus Éireann Annual Report and the annual...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport Eligibility (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Under the terms of my Department's Post Primary School Transport Scheme children are eligible for transport where they reside not less than 4.8 kilometres from and are attending their nearest education centre as determined by my Department/Bus Éireann, having regard to ethos and language. Bus Éireann has advised that children residing in the Dublin 15 area are not eligible for...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport Expenditure (28 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Bus Éireann has provided assurances to my Department that any surplus that may arise in the operation of school transport services in any one year is ring-fenced exclusively for reinvestment in the school transport scheme. The Department is satisfied that the financial accounting for Bus Éireann's operation of the School Transport Scheme, including the Bus Éireann Annual...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport Provision (23 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: The purpose of the School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school. The estimated reduction in output targets for school transport reflects the impact of the changes to the school transport scheme which were introduced at the commencement of the 2011/12 school year. School...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Thank you, Chairman. I congratulate you as well. As someone from my constituency I am delighted that you are chairing this committee. I welcome everyone from the various parties. As Minister of State with responsibility for skills and apprenticeship my remit takes in enterprise, innovation, school buses, SOLAS and anything else one can think of, including the European Space Agency. If...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: I will take as many questions as I can. I ask the Deputy to come back to me if I miss any questions. On the issue of funding for basic scientific research, statistical evidence for the academic year 2012-13 shows that 50.9% of the total higher education research and development budget was on basic research, which has shown very little change. My Department provides Science Foundation...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Yes.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: The Deputy may be correct. It is clear from Innovation 2000 that there is a commitment to establish a competitive fund across all the disciplines and sites to support research that is being done that might be under funded and new research that is coming on board, so the commitment is there. This fund will be established and administered by the research council. There is a commitment to at...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Knowledge Transfer Ireland, KTI, has been tasked with helping companies to innovate and bridge the gap. Already I have met a number of businesses associated with the sciences and they do have some reservations. Overall, as I said earlier, there are 50 business companies dealing exclusively in science and science technology on a level with Europe which would not have been the case ten or 12...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Conscious of Innovation 2020, most of the funding goes to SFI. I have asked Science Foundation Ireland to recommend how science, technology and innovation could best serve the Irish economy in employment, development, reconfiguration of the sciences itself and in dealing with Europe and worldwide issues. They will revert to me in the next couple of weeks. Let me repeat that members of the...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: That 11% reduction was not a cut but a reallocation of that amount to Science Foundation Ireland, which was tasked with redistributing it to the programme for research in third level education.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Deputy, if one looks across the page, one will see where it was distributed - it went to the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and so on. The Deputy should be able to get a breakdown of that.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: Yes, no problem.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: I will take up some of the points made by Deputy Neville. There is no question that we lost many skilled people during the recession. At one stage in 2007, there were 50,000 people serving their apprenticeship, and that number reduced to approximately 5,000. Let us look at the apprenticeships that were on offer during the boom, such as electrics, carpentry, brickwork, plastering and so...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised) (21 Jun 2016)

John Halligan: One of the difficulties in research and development as the Deputy will probably know is that some of the major multinational companies do their own research and development and do much of it outside of Ireland. That is a well known factor. The objective of the Innovation 2020 is to try to persuade those countries that Ireland has quality people to do research and development competitively....