Results 4,041-4,060 of 17,531 for speaker:Jan O'Sullivan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Is the Senator asking for figures or something else?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: They helped pay for it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: We will have to do the maths on that for the Senator. We will have to add them up.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Some of the targets are more important than others and affect more people.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: There are two elements to providing a response. One is that because we do not know what the outcomes will be this year, we will not know what targets we have achieved until we have the returns. We know some of them because they relate to particular issues that can happen during the year, but others we will not know until the end of the year. In regard to the previous year, we can do the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: The answer to that is "Yes". Some work has already been done and there has been interaction with the committee secretariat. We are happy to continue to do that. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform should be involved also. We are happy to work together on output measures to be included in the 2016 Estimates.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Yes, absolutely.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I think we have had some discussions in the past about capital expenditure. It is a different context to measuring outcomes and working with the committee in its role in measuring outcomes, but I am happy to engage with the committee on its priorities. Obviously, the capital plan has been announced and we will very shortly announce the detail of the education-specific aspects of the capital...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: We want to work with the committee in that with regard so that output measures would set out what final and external-facing targets and outcomes will be achieved by a particular action or series of actions. We are happy to work with the committee and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in respect of improving those measures. The point I made in my opening remarks is that in some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Which one was that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: That is somewhat dependent on the schools coming back to us with the information, if I am-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: We have an output for 2014, 2013-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I do not know if we have an answer. We might have to come back to the Senator about that one as well.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: That we have the detail for one year and none for the year before - I must come back to the Senator on that. I do not know why the figure is not there because, obviously, if we were able to do it for 2014 and have a reasonable percentage back-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I will come back to the Senator on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: That is one area in which we need to work with the committee to improve its oversight.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: The output for 2014 is 99.4% and the target for 2015 is 100% - in other words, all schools would have access to NEPS.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: I think we all acknowledge that the NEPS psychologists are definitely stretched in terms of covering all the schools. The target for 2015 is that every school would have access to NEPS psychologists. That does not mean they have as much as the Senator or I would want them to have, but it is a service that has not been as well resourced as we would like. Our target was to ensure that every...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: Senator Moran is correct. We have made some progress in having access for all schools but the amount of access is the issue. I am sure the Senator knows that the National Council for Special Education has proposed reforms in the area of supporting children with special learning needs in schools. Since we did not have all the data, we have not been able to introduce the reforms this year....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Jan O'Sullivan: It is working on it and I am told it is coming. We have not got it yet. I do not know how long it will take but I hope it will not be too long.