Results 10,461-10,480 of 19,032 for speaker:Ruairi Quinn

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: Those opposite started it.

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: It is part of the normal processes undertaken by all Departments on selected areas of expenditure and is being conducted in line with the standard procedure for value for money reviews. As the report was initiated by a Fianna Fáil Minister, I trust the party will not now respond by creating fear among communities about a process it initiated. I expect that the report of the review should...

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: Yes.

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: No teacher will lose his or her job.

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: Is that not a fact?

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: So does Deputy Ó Cuív. He need not throw "rural Ireland" at me. Deputy Ó Cuív was born and educated in Dublin 4.

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: Deputy McConalogue has let the cat out of the bag.

Private Members' Business. Small Primary Schools: Motion (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: No, the Deputy did.

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: No. In reality, it never had such power, as the Senator is aware.

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I would not be so brave as to state anyone has the power to say anything to the HSE. In reality, however, we can express what our preference would be. Even the Minister for Health encounters difficulty on occasion in obtaining responses from the HSE. The legislation recognises the reality in straitened times. We have the power of persuasion and the NCSE, the agency responsible for dealing...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: From her professional knowledge of the educational sphere which surpasses that of most Members, the Senator will be aware that the Department never had available to it the skills necessary to deliver the services in question in the first instance. The aspiration set out in previous legislation was not matched by delivery on the ground. We could not deliver to meet the gap in respect of...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The Senator knows from her time in the House that no Minister has the power to compel any Government agency to do anything if the Department in question does not provide funding in the first instance. We do not give money to the HSE and accordingly we do not have power. We can make requests and seek co-operation, but to compel we need to write the cheques and we do not do so for this agency.

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: This is a follow-up to the debate we had earlier. It must be understood that the section we propose to amend predates the establishment of the HSE. The thrust of my argument is a repetition of what I have already articulated. To make the system work departmental responsibility must be assigned to a group of people who are subject to Cabinet responsibility and collective direction. We hope...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: Subsections (5) and (6) have been inserted in section 7 of the 1998 Act by section 40 of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act of 2004. These subsections provide that in carrying out his or her functions in respect of the provision, planning and co-ordination of support services, the Minister may, following consultation with the Minister for Health and Children,...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The purpose of section 6 is to enact a revised text of sections 23 and 24 of the Education Act to provide for the appointment, suspension, dismissal and payment of teachers, including principal teachers and other staff, in accordance with procedures put in place by the Minister following consultation with the education partners. Section 6 also provides for an addition to section 24 of the...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: There are a number of amendments to this section.

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I understand what the Senator is trying to do. Substituting the words "purposes of section 30" for the words "purpose of implementing section 30" is essentially a technical amendment. The substance of it is that we are substituting agreement with the word consultation. That is at the core of it. There may be other points of clarification. I do not believe that "implementing section 30"...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: This amendment proposes that the revised sections 23 and 24 of the Education Act 1998 are designed to clarify the hierarchy within the legislation. Where publicly funded posts are concerned, the numbers and the qualifications of teachers, along with teachers' terms and conditions of employment, flow from the authority of the Minister and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. This...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I thank the Senators for their constructive interventions on this point. I will respond to the query made by Senator Healy Eames. Before last year, when a teacher became supernumerary to the pupil-teacher ratio, PTR, in a particular school, they stayed on the panel and, in many cases, stayed in the original school. That luxury ended when we lost our economic sovereignty. Under the...

Seanad: Education (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) (31 Jan 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I thank Senators for their contributions. I am happy to follow up on my undertaking, together with the social partners, to work towards a practical, working definition of what consultation and agreement might involve.