Results 2,221-2,240 of 16,227 for speaker:Helen McEntee

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Teaching Qualifications (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The criteria required to have incremental credit awarded to qualified Special Needs Assistants (SNA) is set out in Circular 0139/2006 and was agreed with the unions representing the Special Needs Assistants, School Management Representatives, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and the Department of Education. The relevant unit of the department has not received an application...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Requirements for school places are kept under on-going review in the context of available information on population, enrolments, and residential development activity. In order to plan for school provision and analyse the relevant demographic data, my department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a Geographical Information System, using data from a range of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Public Sector Pensions (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Pensions Unit records indicate that correspondence was received on this matter from the person concerned on 5th February 2025. Appropriate procedures will be followed in relation to this request, and officials from my Department will reach out directly to the individual to provide further assistance regarding their pension entitlements. Members seeking information on their pension...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: On the 11th of September 2024, my predecessor as Minister for Education, Norma Foley TD, welcomed the announcement from Edmund Rice Schools Trust (ERST) that CBS Synge Street will transition from an English medium, single-sex post-primary school to a co-educational Irish-medium Gaelcholáiste commencing with the first year intake in the school year 2026/2027. This will increase the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: I propose to take Questions Nos. 162 and 163 together. 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...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school to which the Deputy refers submitted an application for funding under the Emergency Works Scheme (EWS) for life safety system works. This application was approved and payment of the approved works is currently being processed by the EWS team, once processed a school can generally expect to receive the funding within 10 working days.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Teaching Council of Ireland (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Teaching Council registers teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001-2015 and in line with the Teaching Council Registration Regulations, 2016. As set out in the Schedule of the Regulations, the Council registers teachers under five routes of registration: Route 1 - Primary, Route 2 - Post-primary, Route 3 - Further Education, Route 4 - Other and Route 5 - Student Teacher. The minimum...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: As previously advised, 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. Bus Éireann endeavours to ensure that a reasonable level of transport service is provided for each eligible child. The School Transport Schemes are intended to cater...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (12 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school to which the deputy refers has submitted two applications for funding under the Emergency Works Scheme (EWS), one for mechanical and electrical (M&E) works, and one for roof works. It is important to note that the EWS operates on the basis of a minimal scope of works required to remedy an emergency situation, which is defined as a situation which poses an immediate risk...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (12 Feb 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: Teaching Qualifications (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: Having been appointed Minister for Education and Youth in January 2025, I am now the cabinet minister with responsibility for government policy regarding the Professional Master of Education (PME) programmes.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Department of Education was successful in 2024 with an application for inclusion in the REPowerEU to develop and complete a Schools Energy Retrofit Pathfinder programme. This EU programme has very strict programme delivery funding timelines which must be met to enable funding drawdown. All selected school projects must proceed to construction phase in summer 2025 and thus has a range of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: I can confirm to the Deputy, that my Department currently does not have an Additional School Accommodation application (ASA) on hand from the school in question. Officials in my Department contacted the school in October 2024 and it was confirmed that the school authority is liaising with the County Council regarding the acquisition of land adjacent to the school. As both the school...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The purpose of the Emergency Works Scheme (EWS) is to provide funding specifically for unforeseen emergencies. It does so by ensuring the availability of funding for urgent works to those schools that are in need of resources as a result of an emergency situation. An emergency is deemed to be a situation which poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or the environment, which is...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Equipment (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The furniture and equipment (F and E) area within my Department deals with the provision of furniture and equipment across a number of different streams including the replacement of specialist F and E, to which the issue the deputy has raised refers. As part of the planning for the provision of F and E generally, there has to be a balance between the volume of demand, and the ability of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: I can confirm to the Deputy, that my department has received an application, under the Additional Schools Accommodation Scheme (ASA), from the school authority in question. The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream and special education classroom accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year and where the need cannot be met by the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: As the Deputy may be aware, the purpose of the Summer Works Scheme (SWS) is to enable individual school authorities to undertake small-scale building works on a devolved basis and, ideally, can be carried out during the summer months or at other times that avoid disrupting the operation of the school. The SWS operates on a multi-annual basis for a number of categories and was last opened for...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The school to which the Deputy refers was approved to enter the department’s pipeline of projects under the Additional School Accommodation Scheme. The project will provide 7 General Classrooms, 5 SET rooms, 2 Art rooms/2 Project stores, 1 Music room, 1 Multimedia room, 1 Textiles room and 2 classroom Special Education Needs (SEN) base. In addition, approval has been granted for two...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: I can confirm to the Deputy that officials in my Department engage with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on a regular basis on all aspects relating the planning process and importance of the provision of school places in new and expanding sustainable communities. There has been a significant level of engagement between the two departments during the formation of the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Teaching Qualifications (11 Feb 2025)

Helen McEntee: The Teaching Council registers teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001-2015 and in line with the . As set out in the Schedule of the Regulations, the Council registers teachers under five routes of registration: Route 1 - Primary, Route 2 - Post-primary, Route 3 - Further Education, Route 4 - Other and Route 5 - Student Teacher. The registration requirements for each route are set out in...