Results 8,881-8,900 of 46,267 for speaker:Simon Harris

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: It should listen to the students and reduce those fees in the North. Do something about the A levels as well.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: With the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, we will reduce the fees over time for students. We will ensure a sustainable funding model and we will put more into SUSI. We will work on an all-island basis to look after all the young people.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Admissions (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for this important and timely question. My Department is strongly committed to supporting the health of our population through the provision of graduates with the key competencies and skills to be effective in the health workforce and to support a range of clinical teams in our health services. I am pleased that in the two years this Department has existed, in both 2020...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Admissions (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: The Deputy is entirely right. Since giving my initial response, I found the figure in question from 2020. There were 135 additional places in 2020 and approximately 200 additional places in 2021. It is an increase of approximately 335 nursing and midwifery places over the past year. The Deputy is on to something and he is entirely correct. All of us, including me, regularly tell...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Admissions (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: While I always feel obligated to say the universities are autonomous, I do not wish to sound that I intend in any way, shape or form to be a bystander on this matter. They are autonomous but they are also funded heavily by the taxpayer. We have a right as an Oireachtas to have a policy view on this. Deputy Conway-Walsh asked about a sustainable funding model and there will be a list of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Costs (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for his time when we visited Midleton College and Carrigtwohill Community College recently. I had a chance to engage with students about some of their pathways and options after school and to see the new and exciting plan for Carrigtwohill Community College. I, along with everybody in the House, am highly conscious of the rising cost of living and how we must work...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Educational Disadvantage (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I am 100% up for that. I hope the Oireachtas and Oireachtas committees, including Deputy Michael Moynihan, can genuinely play a helpful and active role in monitoring this. It is not a static document. In my term as Minister, I have been regularly invited to the oversight group. We publish the documents and the targets, but then the work begins. Our figures for higher education...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: This is something on which we agree. I passionately believe we have to reduce the cost of education. We have already taken a number of steps since the Government took office just under two years ago. I will not go through them all in the time available. There is the first increase in the SUSI grants. I accept that some of them do not take effect until September, but some of them have...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for the points she raised and for the constructive manner in which she did so. It is important to say there are existing supports available, and I always say this particularly when I visit schools because sometimes students, when they hear about the cost of education, might not perhaps be aware of that fact. That is worth saying whilst trying to improve them. More than...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: Surely the Deputy would like the Government to take an all-island approach.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: It is a commitment under the Good Friday Agreement that I must fulfil as a Government Minister.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: That is an extraordinary answer.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: Hear, hear.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Fees (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I am sure the Deputy did not mean it. I presume the Sinn Féin Party is very much aware of my commitments under the Good Friday Agreement as part of the Irish Government to have an active interest in many things relating to Northern Ireland. The Deputy will ask me in the Higher Education Authority legislation to take an all-island approach, and I do and I will do so. That is why I...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Educational Disadvantage (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Moynihan very much for raising this issue, which I know is one in which he has a particular interest. Development of the new strategic action plan for equity, participation and success in higher education, which I call the national access and inclusion plan, is at its very final stage. The plan is being developed collaboratively between my Department and the Higher Education...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Educational Disadvantage (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: The submissions process has formally closed but it is never too late to submit a good idea. If there are any further groups or ideas the Deputy wishes to bring forward, I will be very happy to hear from them. The Deputy is 100% right as he has described those at the margins. One of the things a group or stakeholder driving the strategy said was that there needed to be additional priority...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Education (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I find myself in full agreement with the Deputy. To be honest, one of my concerns in respect of the national access plan, which has achieved a lot, is exactly what she and Senator Hoey have identified, that is, there are people with disabilities not counted within those figures. I think of students with autism or those with intellectual disabilities or dyslexia. There are others who are...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Education (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: I will absolutely take that on board. I present the issue as two separate and distinct but very much interdependent parts, as does her question, in fairness. There is the capital piece, on which I expect we will make further progress through both the existing fund we have in place for students with disabilities and the drawdown of that fund to provide facilities such as sensory rooms that...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Education (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: Sinn Féin's government in Northern Ireland has decided that the A-levels should proceed. It did not offer anybody in Northern Ireland a choice. I do not think young people who look across the island will ignore the breathtaking hypocrisy of the stance that Sinn Féin has about the exams down here and the stance it has about the exams up there. I have met students, as I am sure the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Third Level Education (8 Feb 2022)

Simon Harris: Sinn Féin has representation in the North. We generally engage constructively, but taking young people for fools is not going to wash at all.