Results 3,501-3,520 of 7,359 for speaker:Katherine Zappone

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: Yes, indeed.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: In respect of the money, as Deputies will note, in 2018 the overall budget is €3.3 million. That is a decrease of 44% or €2.7 million on the allocation for 2017. Why is there that decrease? It is because there was an overall amount allocated to the commission to do its work, whether it was three or four years. What it has found, certainly in terms of its work in 2017, is...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: I will start with Deputy Sherlock's questions on child care programmes and staff turnover, which is an issue I am well aware of and concerned about. In the budget for 2018, there were a couple of aspects of negotiations for the child care programme which I hoped would assist in ensuring increased resources for providers. My ultimate hope is those resources could be shared with workers,...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: A certain amount is given to the providers generally for non-contact time to support and acknowledge the time they spend outside the rooms with the children. In addition we provided a certain sum of money per child registration per type of service in the interim measures introduced in September 2017 because we acknowledged there was additional work for the providers in signing children up to...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: I raised some questions about what was going on. I respect that the Taoiseach was willing to respond to those along with the other Independent Ministers, Deputies Naughten and Ross. As the Deputy is aware, in respect of the changes we were introducing last September to provide parents and their families and children with significant additional supports, it was very important for us to...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: I will discuss Tusla now. In 2018, Tusla expects to recruit an additional 45 social workers, 57 social care workers, nine nursing staff and 53 other health professionals, which include early years inspectors, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. That is a significant portion of the breakdown of the 422 extra whole-time equivalent employees it will recruit. The grade...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: I will come back to that because we do have an answer. I appreciate the Deputy's question about the HIQA reports. Along with my officials, I have on occasion met with HIQA to listen to its general approach regarding working with Tusla. As the Deputy is aware, HIQA reports include an action plan provided by Tusla to respond to the report. This is accepted by HIQA. Usually when those...

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: I can give a full breakdown but that was to indicate some of the important aspects.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: Nursing staff.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: On public health nurses?

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: That is an excellent question. Our public health nurses do extraordinary work that is so significant early on along with staying with children and families. That is my first comment. Second, we are already engaging with the Department of Health on this. Third, in terms of the earlier strategies we are developing, we are also going to consider a dedicated child health workforce.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: I will.

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs: Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 40 - Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Revised) (7 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: On the two questions about the Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, it was a new part of the Vote for 2017. The PEACE IV programme is a cross-Border initiative funded by the EU, the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly and is managed by a special EU programme body. That is a general response to the first part of the Chairman's question. On the second part, virtually every...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Family Resource Centres (6 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, administers the Family Resource Centre Programme. As part of Budget 2018, I was pleased to announce that additional funding of approximately €3.0m is being allocated to Family Resource Centres. This funding will provide an increased allocation to existing centres, and will support the expansion of the programme, with the inclusion of an additional...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Youth Services Funding (6 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: My Department administers a range of funding schemes and programmes to support the provision of youth services to young people throughout the country including those from disadvantaged communities. These schemes include the Youth Service Grant Scheme under which funding is made available on an annual basis to thirty national and major regional youth organisations. This funding is...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child Care Services Provision (6 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: The Independent Review of the Cost of Providing Quality Childcare is a critical input to the on-going reform of childcare in Ireland and is commitment in the Programme for Government. This Review seeks to: - Analyse the current costs of providing childcare in Ireland and factors that impact on those costs; - Develop a model of the unit cost/costs of providing childcare that allows analysis...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Departmental Advertising Campaigns (6 Mar 2018)

Katherine Zappone: Details of the costs incurred on advertorial content over the past twelve months by my Department are set out in the following table. The overall objective is to keep costs of this nature to a minimum. Date content was published Media platform content was published Purpose of the content Cost 29/05/2017 magicmum.com/mummypages.ie New Measures for more Affordable Childcare...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child and Family Agency Data (28 Feb 2018)

Katherine Zappone: Addressing the number of children who are awaiting the allocation of a social worker is one of my key priorities. I secured funds in Budget 2018 which will allow Tusla to carry out the third year of a 3 year plan to provide for the allocation of a dedicated social worker to all children who need one. Tusla are also funded to recruit family support workers, social care staff and...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (28 Feb 2018)

Katherine Zappone: In June 2016, I introduced the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM), a new programme of supports to enable children with a disability to access and fully participate in the free pre-school programme. AIM is not an SNA model.  Rather, it is a holistic model designed to support pre-school providers to deliver an inclusive pre-school experience. One of the supports offered under AIM...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Departmental Meetings (28 Feb 2018)

Katherine Zappone: My Department would engage on a daily basis with journalists working for newspapers and other media outlets, for example, in relation to answering queries from them and issuing press releases. Officials of my Department would not otherwise engage with newspapers. On occasion, I would engage in press briefings attended by a range of media outlets and I have also...