Results 781-800 of 19,414 for speaker:Norma Foley

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...

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

Norma Foley: The Primary Curriculum Framework, published in March 2023, sets out the direction for the redeveloped Primary Curriculum. The inclusion of modern foreign languages (MFL) at stages 3 and 4 (3rd to 6th class), which was strongly supported in the consultation process, forms part of this redeveloped Primary Curriculum. The new specifications for the full redeveloped curriculum will be...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Artificial Intelligence (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: My Department and its officials do not presently use AI to generate official text. My Department recognises the potential offered by AI and is aware of the Interim Guidelines for Use of AI published. My Department will continue to assess the suitability of AI on a solution by solution basis. The information in respect of State bodies, within the scope of the Deputy’s question,...

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

Norma Foley: As the Deputy may be aware my Department provides funding via the Summer Works Scheme (SWS) to enable individual school authorities to undertake small-scale building works on a devolved basis and, ideally, can be carried out during the summer months or at other times that avoid disrupting the operation of the school. The SWS operates on a multi-annual basis for a number of categories of...

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 daily to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres. This figure includes...

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

Norma Foley: In order to plan for school provision and analyse the relevant demographic data, my department divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a geographical information system, using data from a range of sources, including CSO census data, child benefit and school enrolment data, to identify where the pressure for school places across the country will arise and where additional...

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

Norma Foley: The major building project for the school referred to by the Deputy is being delivered under the Departments ADAPT Programme. The ADAPT Programme uses a professional external Project Manager to co-ordinate and drive the Design Team to achieve the best possible timeframe for the project through the stages of Architectural Planning to Tender and Construction. The project is currently at...

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

Norma Foley: I can confirm to the Deputy, that the school in question submitted an application for the Additional School Accommodation (ASA) scheme in February 2023. Following assessment of the application and consideration of the situation in the school it was agreed that the project should proceed with the Department’s Project Manager Framework. A brief issued to the school authority for 2x...

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 universal access works. 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...

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

Norma Foley: I am pleased to advise the Deputy that approval has issued to the school in question for the provision of Modular Accommodation to provide Two Special Education Needs Classrooms. The project is being delivered under the Department’s Devolved SEN Reconfiguration and Modular Accommodation programme. This programme provides project management supports to enable the accommodation to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Scoileanna Gaeilge agus Gaeltachta (22 Jan 2025)

Norma Foley: Work is currently underway in my department to develop a new policy on Irish-medium education outside of the Gaeltacht. One of the key objectives of this policy, among other things, is to increase the proportion of children and young people accessing Irish-medium education. This includes exploring and progressing opportunities for the growth and establishment of Gaelscoileanna and...