Results 401-420 of 1,024,814 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Noel Grealish) in 'Committee meetings'
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Further and Higher Education
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Pádraig O'Sullivan: 17. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide an update on his plans to enhance disability supports for students in higher education; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19707/24]
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: Inclusion is one of six strategic goals set out in my Department's statement of strategy. The national access plan, NAP, has identified a number of priority groups who are under-represented in higher education and need additional focus, including students with disabilities. The Department has provided funding of an additional €35 million to support the objectives of the NAP over its...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Pádraig O'Sullivan: I appreciate the response. As the Minister will know, students with disabilities suffer significant disadvantage when it comes to college attendance and face additional costs to provide for their needs and equipment. The disability access route to education, DARE, programme provides significant supports to students with disabilities to access third level. The Minister's predecessor...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: As I said in response to other Deputies who raised issues regarding the budget, I will be guided to a large degree by many of the issues that are raised directly by Members of the House, including people such as the Deputy. The proportion of new entrants in 2022 who had a disability was 12.5%, whereas the current figure is 13.8%, with a target of 16%, so we are going in the right direction....
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Pádraig O'Sullivan: As the Minister correctly said, students with disabilities now represent a greater proportion of the student population and it is trending in the right direction, but they are still significantly under-represented. While I, like other Deputies, do not expect the Minister to reveal any details of the budget today, I emphasise that a greater level of investment and resources could be placed...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: I do not disagree with the Deputy. His county colleague Deputy Stanton raised circumstances for people that may seem simple but can be very challenging, relating to, for instance, access to the most basic of facilities on campuses, including bathrooms, and the tying-up of transport. There will definitely be a requirement for local authorities, some State agencies and other Government actors...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Further and Higher Education
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Ruairi Ó Murchú: 18. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of the review of disability supports for students at further and higher education centres; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23180/24]
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Ruairi Ó Murchú: What is the status of the review of disability supports for students in further and higher education centres, and will the Minister make a statement on the matter? Some of this relates to my engagement with the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Harris, not least in respect of personal assistants in further education colleges and trying to rectify the issue with their contracts.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Further and Higher Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: The Department is carrying out an information-gathering exercise that will facilitate the signposting of courses and associated supports for people with disabilities as they move from second to tertiary level, and this is part of a broader scheme of work planned by the Department, which will also include a diagnostic review of the tertiary offering for people with disabilities as part of work...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: I am sorry to disappoint the Deputy-----
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Rose Conway-Walsh: I am not disappointed.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: There is continuous engagement between our Department, the Department of Health and the HSE with regard to workforce planning and our burgeoning population in view of the fact that the economy has been completely revived since 2011. I know the Deputy and her party like to create the impression that everybody is leaving the country, but the reality is that they are not. We have a growing...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Rose Conway-Walsh: The Minister spoke about people not leaving the country. I will give him an example from the small, remote, rural area of Belmullet in which I live and from the Mullet Peninsula in County Mayo. More than 50 young people have left to go to Australia alone. Those are the facts, and he can check them out with his local people. Many of them are nurses, doctors and other clinicians we badly...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: I do not agree there is any problem with foreign students coming into Irish universities. Plenty of Irish pharmacists, doctors and physiotherapists train in Scotland, Wales and England every year. This has been the case for some time. That is a good thing. I do not agree with that at all. The Deputy referred to it being underfunded. I accept that there is a figure to which we would...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Rose Conway-Walsh: I am not.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Patrick O'Donovan: With regard to population, I take my statistics from the Central Statistics Office. I represent a rural constituency. The Deputy knows as well as I do that every district electoral division has experienced an increase in population. This cant that people are leaving the country is just not true.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Catherine Connolly: I am trying to get in as many people as possible.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Nursing Education (23 May 2024)
Question No. 15 taken with Written Answers