Results 2,181-2,200 of 19,032 for speaker:Ruairi Quinn

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: It costs money to certify courses and ensure certification is sufficiently robust to allow a course take its rightful place in the qualification ladder. Certification of a course by Quality and Qualifications Ireland to the educational provider is one thing, while the way in which the provider charges course participants to recoup the money is another matter. If the committee communicates...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: As the Deputy will note from the briefing documentation, the reduction of approximately 70% is attributed to the impact of the Haddington Road agreement on salary costs and related savings, the €250 increase in the student contribution and the ongoing 1% cut in core pay and non-pay allocations to third level institutions announced in budget 2012. The reduced allocation also reflects...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: I brought it to Cabinet yesterday. It has now gone out for a response. A specialist group has been set up and is headed up by Mr. Kevin Duffy, the chairman of the Labour Court, who started his career as an apprentice bricklayer and has an intimate knowledge of apprenticeships through time since he was on the council of AnCO and then FÁS. The subject is now out for consultation. The...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: If Deputy Ryan would copy the Department of Education and Skills with the specific information, and I do not wish to intrude on the privacy of the individual who came to his clinic. The whole thinking around Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, which brought FETAC and HETAC together into one qualifications framework is around ten qualifications. A qualification is a qualification and it...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: Through the Chair, I wish to ask members to highlight any such incidents of what I can only describe as academic snobbery and bring it to our attention. The qualifications framework was designed to eliminate that.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: Programme D.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: If we were to try to work from a single programme next year, that would help us all. It might also save a forest in the process.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: It is confusing for all of us, me included. At what page should I look?

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: It is the calendar year.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: It is not smoke and mirrors. There is a five-year building programme. Building projects, which are estimated and deemed to be considered to go on site, may run into different difficulties. There may be a planning appeal process, there may be difficulties with the site or otherwise. There is a capital underspend for planned expenditure. It fell short last year and there were savings...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: The response I have here, on which I can elaborate if it is insufficient, is that 2012 provided for an overall reduction in capitation to primary and post-primary schools over a phased basis. It was a reduction of 2% in 2012 and 2013 and a further reduction of 1% in 2014 and in 2015. We have factored that into our savings over the next number of years, as has the Department of Public...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: It has. I have just got a note to that effect. In the area of electricity, a schools electricity competition is currently under way with the support of the National Procurement Service. This is the service run by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform which is assisting large spending Departments like the Department of Education and Skills. More than 1,700 schools are included in...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: I have just been informed by a colleague that the Department is actually telephoning schools but if the Deputy knows of specific schools which are having difficulties-----

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: That is right.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: The idea of co-ordinated procurement, which no previous Government really did in the manner being undertaken by the Department of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, is to use the purchasing power of 3,200 primary schools, turn them into one customer for electricity and exercise that bulk buying volume to reduce unit prices in terms of cost. Prior to that, there...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: The new national anti-bullying procedures, which have been adopted and will be implemented in 4,000 primary and post-primary schools, were launched September of last year. Funding of €60,000 was made available for anti-bullying training for parents which is being provided jointly by the National Parents Councils, primary and post-primary. There were some 105 parent anti-bullying...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: Subject to the direction of the Chairman, there are some outstanding questions. Deputy McConalogue referred to the replacement of prefabs. In 2012, under the prefab replacement initiative, approval was given to 170 schools nationally to replace 458 prefab units with permanent accommodation. In excess of €42 million was allocated for the initiative, of which €35 million has...

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: We do not have the information to hand and I would prefer to reflect on the question, which we have recorded, and to write a comprehensive note.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: The Deputy does not need to if he does not want to. I will write to him based on his question at this meeting. A parliamentary question is not necessary.

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (Revised) (22 Jan 2014)

Ruairi Quinn: A number of questions have been asked and I will answer them as best as I can. If I do not give a complete reply, we can return to them, subject to the rulings of the Chair. Junior cycle reform was raised by Deputies McConalogue and O'Brien. The first meeting of the national working group on junior cycle reform, as I said yesterday, took place last Friday. I would have preferred it to...