Results 6,121-6,140 of 7,359 for speaker:Katherine Zappone

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Youth Services (29 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: My Department administers a range of funding schemes and programmes to support the provision of youth services by the voluntary youth sector, to young people throughout the country including those from disadvantaged communities. The funding schemes support national and local youth work provision to some 380,000 young people. The voluntary youth sector involves approximately 1,400 paid staff,...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Early Childhood Care and Education (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The expansion of the ECCE programme will see the number of children benefitting from the Programme rise from around 67,000 to around 127,000 in a given programme year. For the 2016/17 programme year, it is estimated that 89,500 children will be eligible to enrol in the Programme from September 2016, an additional 22,000 from January 2017 and a further 15,500 from April 2017. The maximum...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Domestic Violence Policy (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: In 2016, funding for Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence services is €20.6 million. This includes additional funding of €200,000, requested by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency to implement the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention). As the agency with statutory responsibility for care and...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: AIM, which is a new programme of supports to enable children with a disability to access and fully participate in the free pre-school programme, is administered by Pobal on behalf of this Department. The degree of support provided will depend on the needs of the child in the context of the pre-school service. The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme is provided for 3 hours...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Early Childhood Care and Education (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The rule whereby parents could not avail of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme and the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme at the same time was introduced to make sure that as many families as possible could benefit from finite resources. The rule enabled more parents to avail of some level of subsidisation at a time when the funding available for such schemes...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Community Childcare Subvention Programme (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The detailed information sought by the Deputy is not currently available in my Department in the format requested. However, I have requested Pobal, the agency that administers the CCS on my Department’s behalf, to provide the information for the Deputy in no later than 10 working days. I have asked my officials to follow up on this and to ensure delivery of the information to the...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Community Childcare Subvention Programme (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The detailed information sought by the Deputy is not currently available in my Department in the format requested. However, I have requested Pobal who administers the scheme on my Department’s behalf to provide the information which will be supplied to the Deputy no later than 10 working days. I have asked my officials follow up on this to ensure delivery as a matter of urgency.

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child and Family Agency Staff (28 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The Child and Family Agency (Tusla) has advised that at present, there are 3589.24 whole-time equivalent staff directly employed. As Tusla records its data by administrative area as opposed to on a county basis, a breakdown by county is not available. The breakdown by administrative area is set out in tabular format below. The Deputy should note that the classification 'Corporate' includes...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Early Childhood Care and Education (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The Early childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme is administrative in nature, and as such, ECCE enrolments are not offered on the basis of legislative or statutory provisions. However, any scheme funded by Government must have a strong governance regime in place to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent appropriately. From the inception of ECCE, services that have chosen to provide...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Domestic Violence Refuges Provision (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: Tusla, the Child and Family Agency allocates funding for a network of 60 organisations that provide services to victims of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in Ireland. This includes 20 services that provide some 145 family units of emergency refuge accommodation to women and children. Tearmann Domestic Violence service which is based in Monaghan town provides support, information...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Commencement of Legislation (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: Part 11 of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 amends the Adoption Act 2010 to provide for the joint adoption of a child by civil partners and cohabiting couples. Part 11 of the 2015 Act requires amendment in order to ensure that the 2010 Act adequately protects the rights of those persons whose consent to an adoption is required and to generally ensure a robust legislative basis...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: AIM, which is a new programme of supports to enable children with a disability to access and fully participate in the free pre-school programme, is administered by Pobal on behalf of this Department. The degree of support provided will depend on the needs of the child in the context of the pre-school service. This Department has made enquiries of Pobal in relation to your query and it...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Early Childhood Care and Education Funding (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: In anticipation of increased demand for places in the Early Childhood Care and Education Scheme, the Department introduced a number of measures to assist Early Years providers and ensure sufficient capacity. My Department provided capital funding of €4m to services throughout the country to increase capacity. I subsequently received approval from the Minister for Public Expenditure...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Departmental Expenditure (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The information requested by the Deputy relating to travel and subsistence expenses in the Department is set out in the following table: YEAR Tand S EXPENDITURE (€000) 2011 66 2012 102 2013 136 2014 78 2015 109 2016 (to end July) 94All travel and subsistence claims in my Department are paid in line with the travel and subsistence circulars as issued by the Department of Public...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Data Protection (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: Data protection responsibility falls within the remit of the Support Services function at my Department. The Data Protection Officer also holds additional responsibilities and there are no plans to make this role an exclusive position at my Department.

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Early Childhood Care and Education (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: My Department does its best to ensure, in so far as is possible, the equitable treatment of all children and families who apply for childcare funding under the ECCE Programme. In order to ensure objectivity and fairness it is essential that clear rules exist for the scheme and that they are applied in a fair manner. The rules for all the Department’s childcare schemes are clearly...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child Care Costs (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The DCYA currently administers four targeted childcare programmes to support low income families. These are: 1. Community Childcare Subvention Programme (CCS) 2. Childcare Education and Training Support Programme (CETS), 3. After-School Childcare Programme (ASC) 4. Community Employment Childcare Programme (CEC). These four programmes are administratively very complex and...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Residential Institutions (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: As previously advised, a centre manager has been identified for the residential centre in question. An exact date of appointment will be agreed when the timescale for capital and minor capital works is available. This information will allow for a timeline to be developed around the appointment of the manager and the reopening plan for the centre. The Social Work Management and...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: I propose to take Questions Nos. 960 and 961 together. There have been numerous calls to extend the Commission's Terms of Reference. I am satisfied that the Commission has sufficient independence, powers and scope to examine a broad range of concerns and to make a determination on their relevance to the central issues in question. The Commission can also make recommendations in any of...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (27 Sep 2016)

Katherine Zappone: The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes has recently submitted a second Interim Report. This Report has been prepared in response to my request that the Commission report on whether it considers any additional matters may warrant further investigation as part of the its work. This request was made of the Commission in July when the Government agreed an extension of...