Results 6,461-6,480 of 45,510 for speaker:Simon Harris

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Education (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I do not want to pre-empt the review but my instinctive view is in line with the Deputy’s in terms of this idea of a recommended minimum stipend. That is something that would be quite helpful because the more one looks into this issue, the more one realises there are so many different and diverse ways in which stipends are funded. There are the ones directly funded through my own...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Education (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: This is an important issue for the well-being of our students, the next generation of leaders and some of our best and brightest. It is also an important issue from the point of view of the competitiveness of our country, a knowledge-based economy. I want to look at the stipend but, in any review, I want to look at more than the stipend, as the Deputy is suggesting. I think there are...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I find myself fundamentally in agreement with the Deputy. To be blunt and honest here, we had to start somewhere and we started at the €3,000 fee. Any student linked to the €3,000 undergraduate fee benefits from the €1,000 reduction. Do we want to do more? Yes. Do we need to do more in respect of part-time students? We absolutely do for the reasons the Deputy has...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: Yes, I can, and it will be replaced in 2023. The first priority, and it has to be my first one, is to get building student accommodation. There are a number of sites and universities that have planning permission and land today and I need to get those projects built. It has not been possible to build them, and I do not mean to say this in a critical way of them, for whatever one may want...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Children in Care (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for his question; it is one of the most important with which we will deal this evening and I will genuinely work with him on this issue. We have had a number of meetings with Empowering People In Care, EPIC. Marissa Ryan, its CEO, is doing great work and Rory Brown, a member of its youth council, recently spoke at the launch of the new national access plan. Before I get...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Children in Care (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I appreciate and acknowledge the passion. It is a serious issue and we will look into it. As the Deputy implied, it is not directly within the remit of my Department. The benefit of the national access plan, however, is that it involves other Departments on the implementation group. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Health, the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Children in Care (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I do not want to stray too far outside my remit as I do not have responsibility for that matter but I will be engaging with relevant Departments and Government colleagues on these issues. If we are serious about fixing access to further and higher education for people who have had experience of the care system - and we are - that will be interdependent on several other things happening...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter on behalf of her constituent. As she is aware, as part of the budget 2023 we have secured a significant cost-of-living package for third level students, including a once-off €1,000 state financial support towards the undergraduate student contribution fee for higher education students eligible for the free fees scheme. This measure will...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Technological Universities (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: It used to be that the Deputy did not believe that I was going to deliver the university. Now we have delivered the university and he does not believe that I will properly fund it. I will fund it.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Technological Universities (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: No, it is not just a structure.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Technological Universities (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I ask the Deputy for a little degree of positivity. For the first time in the history of Waterford, people in Waterford city can get a university degree. People in Waterford county and in the south east, the Industrial Development Authority, IDA, Enterprise Ireland and even Sinn Féin, with respect to it, believe in it. The Opposition and the Government have come together on this....

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Technological Universities (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: The university and business people believe it. We will not negotiate the commercial amounts on the floor of the Dáil. However, we will get on and do it. Many people told me that this Government will never deliver a university, but we have. Now those same people want to say we will not expand the footprint; we are.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Departmental Expenditure (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I fundamentally agree with Deputy Conway-Walsh. I ran out of time on my last answer but I fundamentally agree with the Deputy in regard to the size of the surplus. It is prudent to have a level of surplus. We would agree on that. It is imprudent to have such a large surplus. I agree on that too. The challenge for the Government, and I respectfully suggest it is also a challenge for the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Departmental Expenditure (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: We have to get this right. My colleague, the Tánaiste, indicated most recently in his speech at the IBEC annual dinner his wish, my wish and the Government’s wish to be able to use this fund, an element of the surplus of this fund, to provide an additionality when it comes to skills provision in Ireland. As I have said, on my invitation the OECD is currently conducting a review...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Technological Universities (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I appreciate the concise way in which the Deputy delivered a very lengthy written question. I thank Deputy Shanahan for raising the question and for his ongoing engagement with me in regard to SETU, and particularly in regard to Waterford city and county. I look forward to visiting on Monday and engaging further with the Deputy there. The multi-campus South East Technological...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Technological Universities (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: The people of the south east can believe us because we are delivering. The Deputy can decide whether or not to get on board with that but we are delivering. There is a technological university in the south east. Job done. The staff and the students voted for it. Veronica Campbell, the former bursar of Trinity College Dublin, is the president, and Paddy Prendergast, the former provost of...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Costs (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I accept that there is always a need to do more, but the idea that the Deputy suggests, or would suggest on behalf of anybody else, that nothing was done in the budget to assist students, is manifestly untrue. Some €143 million has been allocated for cost-of-living measures for students between now and the end of the year, which is not nothing. About 95,000 students will benefit from...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Costs (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: We also have record numbers of students in third level education. There are more than there have ever been in the history of the State and that has to be acknowledged. There are more students than ever before in the history of the leaving certificate getting their first choice of college course. New technological universities are opening in the regions. There are pathways between further...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Costs (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: Objectively, we are removing barriers. I am the first Minister with responsibility for higher education who has been able to stand here in 27 years and talk about fees coming down. That is what the budget did. We can have a legitimate debate about the pace of reduction and whether we can move faster, but let us not escape the context, which is that we have just delivered a budget which has...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Departmental Expenditure (18 Oct 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for this question. The 2022 Revised Estimates provided for expenditure, as the Deputy said, of €765 million from the National Training Fund. While these amounts have been allocated to the various beneficiaries, the final actual expenditure for 2022 is not known as yet because we have not reached year end. The final allocation for the NTF in 2023 will be...