Results 10,241-10,260 of 19,032 for speaker:Ruairi Quinn
- Written Answers — Departmental Expenditure: Departmental Expenditure (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: My Department commissions or undertakes evaluation reports from time to time on the impact of various educational programmes. A formal cost benefit analysis study was not undertaken in respect of the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme. The programme was introduced in 1994 on foot of the Report of the Industrial Policy Review Group (the Culliton Report, published 1992) which recommended...
- Written Answers — Vocational Education Committees: Vocational Education Committees (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: I propose to take Questions Nos. 113 and 114 together. The Deputy will appreciate that the information requested by him is not held by my Department, as such cases are a matter for County Cork VEC. Further to Parliamentary Question No. 112 of 14 December 2011, my officials again contacted the VEC which confirmed that it would require an inordinate amount of administrative time to compile the...
- Written Answers — Vocational Education Committees: Vocational Education Committees (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: The information requested by the Deputy is contained in the accounts of Co Cork VEC, which for most of the years in question are stored in an off site location. Officials from my Department are arranging for the documents to be retrieved and the information will be collated and forwarded to the Deputy as soon as possible.
- Written Answers — Vocational Education Committees: Vocational Education Committees (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: My Department has raised a number of issues with Co Cork VEC in relation to the expenditure of its funding. These relate to ineffective expenditure on an IT project that was the subject of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), in accordance with Section 7 of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993, and to an internal audit report on Macroom Youthreach...
- Written Answers — EU Presidency: EU Presidency (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: Significant preparatory work has been undertaken by my Department in preparation for the education and skills components of the Irish Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2013. A departmental committee, chaired by the responsible member of the Management Advisory Committee, is co-ordinating the Department's approach at official level. To date, the work has focused on developing...
- Written Answers — Departmental Expenditure: Departmental Expenditure (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: The following is the expenditure of my Department in relation to the provision of external legal services legal in the years 2007 â 2011 (inclusive): Year Amount 2007 â¬150,963.01 2008 â¬158,431.21 2009 â¬192,455.29 2010 â¬106,192.39 2011 â¬25,586.91 Total â¬633,628.81
- Written Answers — Educational Projects: Educational Projects (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: My Department has no plans to create a database or network that is dedicated specifically to Ph.D. students at Irish universities. However, funding was provided under the Department's Strategic Innovation Fund to the Irish Universities Association in 2008 to develop a national online repository for research publications from Irish universities. This initiative aims to make Irish research...
- Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: How many times did he blow up the railway line?
- Written Answers — Ministerial Correspondence: Ministerial Correspondence (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: My Department is in receipt of separate correspondence from the company referred to by the Deputy. My officials have made contact with the company and will respond to the company in due course.
- Written Answers — European Globalisation Fund: European Globalisation Fund (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: I propose to take Questions Nos. 188 and 200 together. On foot of an application made by the Irish authorities in October 2009 in support of workers made redundant in 2009 at the S R Technics aircraft maintenance facility at Dublin Airport, EU funding of â¬7.45m was subsequently received from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) in December 2010. Including required matching...
- Written Answers — FÁS Training Programmes: FÁS Training Programmes (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: I am informed that the FÃS Training Centre located in Baldoyle has responsibility for the operation and administration of contracted training in North Dublin which includes the Balbriggan area. In 2011, FÃS Baldoyle Training Centre conducted a performance review of its training portfolio and provision provided over the previous two years. This review in conjunction with the FÃS training...
- Written Answers — School Staffing: School Staffing (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: I propose to take Questions Nos. 190, 239 and 243 together. All schools must continue to provide guidance to their pupils. However, from September 2012 guidance provision will be managed by schools from within their standard staffing allocation. As things currently stand and before any changes are made, 42% of second level schools do not presently have a full-time guidance counsellor....
- Written Answers — Grant Payments: Grant Payments (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: The purpose of the Remote Area Boarding Grant is to give pupils who are educationally disadvantaged because of their remoteness from schools an opportunity to attend school on the same basis as other pupils not so disadvantaged. A list of boarding schools providing free second-level education is available on my Department's website.
- Written Answers — School Accommodation: School Accommodation (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: Information on rented prefabricated accommodation is recorded by my Department on a county by county basis. Attached is a list of schools where prefab accommodation is currently being rented in Dublin City and County. My Department does not hold information on the numbers of pupils in individual schools who currently occupy temporary accommodation; this depends on the organisation of class...
- Written Answers — Teachers' Remuneration: Teachers' Remuneration (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: I propose to take Questions Nos. 193 and 194 together. The information sought by the Deputy from 2008 to 2012 is set out in the table. Shared-full-time teaching posts and travel between schools is a long standing feature of the primary system. The cost of this travel in 2011 was just over â¬1.3m. My Department does not anticipate any significant increase in these costs in 2012. The...
- Written Answers — School Staffing: School Staffing (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: I announced measures in November 2011 permitting post-primary schools to re-employ teachers who retire between 1 December 2011 and 29 February 2012 and who, immediately before their retirement, have been teaching students preparing to sit the Junior or Leaving Certificate examinations in 2012. Such teachers may be re-employed until the summer holidays for the teaching duties for which they...
- Written Answers — Personal Vacation Days: Personal Vacation Days (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: A teacher's entitlement to extra personal vacation (EPV) days is on the basis of attending approved summer courses. My Department has in place, a quality assurance system that approves all summer courses and evaluates a sample of summer courses. This is necessary to ensure that the summer courses on offer to teachers and which are eligible for EPV days, foster and facilitate quality...
- Written Answers — Information and Communications Technology: Information and Communications Technology (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: A working group comprising representatives from my Department, HEAnet and the Department of Communications and Natural Resources have recommended a strategy for the roll out of 100mbps to post primary schools. All schools will be connected by the end of 2014. The strategy which has been accepted by Government is based upon the best technical advice available and designed to achieve best...
- Written Answers — Higher Education Grants: Higher Education Grants (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: Plans are well underway to replace the 66 existing student grant awarding bodies with one single grant awarding authority. I have appointed the City of Dublin VEC to operate the centralised authority commencing operation for all new grant applicants for the 2012/13 academic year and implementation arrangements are well advanced for this purpose. The office will be located in Ballsbridge,...
- Written Answers — School Staffing: School Staffing (14 Feb 2012)
Ruairi Quinn: The new simplified approach to the General Allocation Model of support for schools will make it easier to automatically update it annually in line with the changes in the number of classroom teachers in each school. Schools will also have autonomy on how to deploy the resource between language support and learning support depending on their specific needs. The arrangements for the staffing...