Results 3,701-3,720 of 19,032 for speaker:Ruairi Quinn

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: We are at a very early stage of the budgetary process. The budget will be announced in October and we will have a much clearer picture in six or seven weeks when the schools reopen. We will then be dealing with concrete numbers rather than estimates. My Department will have discussions with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in September and we will have a much firmer base of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: It is a collective Cabinet process. In the first instance, the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, and I will work on the budget process along with the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Sherlock, who is not as involved in the Department as is Deputy Cannon who has devolved responsibility for the school transport programme. We have reached a political decision. In the past not every...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: I am informed that document was produced in September 2011.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, informs me that if the public procurement process identifies a price level for a standard ream of photocopy paper, for example, and a school has a traditional supplier of stationery and the unit price is €10, if the local supplier can provide it at that price then the school is entitled to purchase at that price. It has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: Yes. We are not directing the schools as to from whom they should buy their supplies. If the Deputy knows of instances which are not in accordance I ask him to let us know. We are advising them of the price that should be paid for a ream of paper, for example.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: There were 1,694 prefabricated units being rented in primary and post-primary schools at the end of March 2011 at a cost of €23.2 million. This compares with 1,490 units being rented at the end of March 2012 at a cost of €19 million and 1,273 being rented at the end of March this year at a cost of €17 million. We have been systematically trying to reduce it. The Deputy...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: That is the intention. I should stress that because we have a rapidly growing population we will always need temporary accommodation and prefabs are a response to that need but they should not become a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I was very harsh on Ministers of the time about the prefab programme but part of the problem in the years of the construction boom was that many...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: I was presented with a report that will be published later today which, hot off the press, shows that the figure for 2012 to 2013, the academic year that has just ended, was 526,426 in primary school, an increase of 9,966, and in the post-primary sector the figure was 327,320, an increase of 4,790. In round figures, the top figure in 2016 to 2017 - the first academic year after the next...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: The figure will be an extra 8,000 at post-primary level in 2014 to 2015. In 2014 to 2015 the primary school population will be 552,019, another increase of almost 13,000. The total school-going population in 2016 to 2017 does not level off until about 2020 to 2023. This total figure will be of the order of 900,000. We have 90,000 teachers at the moment. The population of the country is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: I will come back to that issue, but will respond first to the point made by Deputy Griffin. International university rankings are like tourist guides. They highlight different aspects of universities. The United States have ranked their universities for a long time. The rankings are like league tables and can be manipulated according to what one wants to try to emphasise. For example,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: The Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, has responsibility for school transport so I will ask him to try to respond to that question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: The funding agency for third level is the Higher Education Authority. The Department makes the money available indirectly. The Higher Education Authority allocates the funding. There are 39 different institutions in receipt of funding, 14 institutes of technology, seven universities and basically each institution will be spoken to by the HEA and would agree the level of reduction. I do...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: Thank you Deputy. The previous Government asked Dr. Colin Hunt to head up a national review committee on a strategy for higher education and it published its report in January 2011. The report was finished in August but it got delayed for a variety of reasons. I was in opposition at the time but I welcomed the report. It was a very useful piece of work and while I did not necessarily...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: I have always recognised it. It may be a useful topic for the committee to explore.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: For non-fee paying post-primary schools, the pupil-teacher ratio is 19:1. In the 55 fee paying schools of the 723 post-primary schools in question, the ratio is 23:1. This figure increased from 21:1 last year. This change has a saving of approximately €2 in the first year and €6 in a full year. I am sorry - €2 million and €6 million, not €2 and €6.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: No, but we have not started the budgetary exercise yet. All I know is that the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, the Department and I must find savings in the order of €44 million, possibly more. A list of interventions, including the pupil-teacher ratio, can be made to produce money. Our task is to quantify the savings so that we can be accurate in assessing what we will get. This...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: I have regarded the situation in that way so far. We have not changed the ratio at primary or second level because it is part and parcel of front-line services. Frankly, what we aspire to do and what we must do are two different matters. The history of this should be understood.It dates back to 1907 with the Ne Temere decree, which the Vatican imposed on this country but not on Germany,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: I know. Recently, I met parents in Limerick from Munster’s farming community who believed that their ability to have their children reared in the tradition to which I have referred was being made impossible by virtue of changes to the pupil-teacher ratio.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: Dún Laoghaire.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: 2014 Pre-Budget Submission: Department of Education and Skills (17 Jul 2013)

Ruairi Quinn: The estimate – I must stress that it is only an estimate – from a few years ago when this idea was first mooted was €2 million to €3 million in savings per year during the first couple of years, after which time we would have a clearer picture. To be honest, that estimate comes with a health warning.