Results 761-780 of 19,404 for speaker:Norma Foley

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Special Educational Needs (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: Schools are supported through funding from the furniture & equipment scheme (F&E) to have sufficient appropriate furniture and equipment to meet the needs of the vast majority of children. However, as the furniture and equipment needs of some children are highly sensitive and individualised, these applications for funding are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. For this small...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The Leave of Absence following Assault Scheme for SNAs is contained in the Department’s Circular Letter 0062/2017. It provides for special leave with pay (subject to specified limits) to a special needs assistant who is unable to perform their duties due to a physical injury following an assault that happened in the course of their duties and during approved school activities. ...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: In relation to school secretaries in ETB post-primary schools, each ETB is responsible for the recruitment and deployment of secretaries to their schools based on sanction issued by my Department with the level of such staffing determined by the number of pupils enrolled in the school in question. Based on an increase in enrolment in the school referred to by the Deputy, Dublin and...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The Project referred to by the Deputy was approved to enter the Department’s pipeline of school buildings to provide the refurbishment and extension to an existing building. The Tender Report for the project was recently received by my Department and is being reviewed by the Department's professional and technical team from both a technical and cost perspective in accordance with the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non-DEIS, to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) Programme is a key policy initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The school in question submitted an application for funding under the Emergency Works Scheme (EWS) for roof works. The application in question is currently being reviewed by the EWS team under the appeals process. Once this review process is complete the EWS team will engage further with the school as appropriate. The EWS team is aware of the urgent nature of the works required and will...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Public Sector Pensions (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: I am pleased to inform the Deputy, as requested by the person concerned, officials in the Pension Unit of my Department have completed the process of transferring pensionable service in respect of employment with the HSE to the Primary Teachers’ Pension Scheme. The person concerned has also been issued with a statement of pensionable service and confirmation that she is now considered...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The provision of school places to meet the needs of children and young people at primary and post-primary level, including children and young people with special educational needs is an absolute priority for the Department. As the Deputy may be aware, in order to plan for school place needs, my Department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and utilises a Geographical...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The project to which the Deputy refers is a Major Devolved project and has been devolved for delivery under the patronage of CEIST. It is currently at Stage 2b of the architectural process, which allows for detailed design/planning, obtaining the necessary statutory permissions and the preparation of tender documents. Once the Design Team have completed the Stage 2b report, it will be...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: I can confirm to the Deputy, that my Department is in receipt of an application for capital funding, under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme, from the school in question. The purpose of my Department’s Additional School Accommodation (or ASA) scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom accommodation and accommodation for pupils with special education...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Curriculum (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: All children and young people up to the age of 18 years irrespective of status, including migrant children, children of international protection applicants, refugees, migrant workers and unaccompanied minors have access to free primary and post-primary education in the same way as Irish nationals. A school must admit all students applying where it is not oversubscribed and places are...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: I can confirm to the Deputy, that my Department is in receipt of an application for capital funding, under the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme, from the school in question. The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream and special education classroom accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year and where the need cannot be met by...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Child Abuse (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The Government has accepted the recommendation to establish a Commission of Investigation which is the principal recommendation of the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into Historical Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools Run by Religious Orders. The Report of the Scoping Inquiry made a number of further recommendations, including that consideration be given to expanding the remit of the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The project referred to by the Deputy has been devolved to the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) for delivery as part of a programme of school building projects. The brief for the project is to provide a new build replacement school for a long-term projected enrolment of 1,000 pupils including a 4 class SEN base. The project is currently in the final stages of Stage 2b of the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 172,500 children, are transported daily in approximately 7,900 vehicles across 10,300 routes to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes over...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The project referred to by the Deputy, has been devolved for delivery to Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board (WWETB). The Stage 2b report was submitted to my Department and has been reviewed. Preliminary comments have issued out which require Design Team action prior to further review. Once the final Stage 2b report is received, reviewed and approved, it will progress to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Facilities (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: As the Deputy may be aware, the purpose of the Summer Works Scheme (SWS) is to devolve funding to individual school authorities to undertake small-scale building works which, ideally, can be carried out during the summer months or at other times that avoid disrupting the operation of the school. The Summer Works Scheme plays an important role in the maintenance and upgrade of the condition of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The school to which the Deputy refers was approved to enter the department’s pipeline of projects under the Additional School Accommodation Scheme for the provision of a 2 Classroom SEN base. The project was devolved to the school authority for delivery. In Q3 2024 my Department received a revised Stage 1/2a submission (architectural design) which was reviewed by my Department's...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Facilities (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: The school to which the Deputy refers submitted an application for funding under the Emergency Works Scheme (EWS) for External Environment Works. This application is currently being reviewed by the technical team within the EWS and, once a technical recommendation has been received, the EWS team will engage further with the school as appropriate. The EWS team is aware of the urgent nature of...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: Please find attached requested data. 2023-2024 is the most recent year we have final published class data for on the Department's website. For additional context, in academic year 2023-2024 there was a total of 23,818 mainstream classes. 22,181 of these were of 29 pupils or less and there were 1,637 classes of 30 pupils or more, or 6.9% of the total number mainstream classes. This figure...