Results 13,501-13,520 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Residential Institutions Statutory Fund (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I have met survivors myself and they have expressed these very concerns. These are the ones who will be subject to the review. Of course there is a customer service charter, a feedback and complaints policy, an appeal mechanism and recourse to the Ombudsman. There are mechanisms in place to try to deal with these inconsistencies. These are standard good practices in any organisation....

Other Questions: Teachers' Remuneration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: Equality and fairness are, of course, at the heart of everything this Government is trying to do, particularly in the education area where I am particularly focused on creating better opportunities for people from disadvantaged communities in our schools system and in higher education. The recent budget included measures seek to do this. The public service agreements have allowed a...

Other Questions: Teachers' Remuneration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: As the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, has pointed out, full restoration of all of the cuts would cost close to €2 billion and we have to make a phased arrangement. Under existing arrangements we are making a commitment of not far off €1 billion in restoration over the period of this agreement. We have the public pay commission and I know the INTO and TUI will pursue the...

Other Questions: Teachers' Remuneration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I negotiated a deal with the three unions. In the event, one of them was not able to carry the agreement. It has restored 75% of pay and delivered full equality at later points in the payscale. I know the trade unions representing teachers will go to the Public Service Pay Commission, which is an objective, fair and independent body, to assess the very issues on the table. There will be...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Curriculum (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment took over responsibility in 2012. As I said in my reply, it is currently undertaking a review of that particular patron programme. I also said it is evolving, as the Deputy rightly said too. Increasingly there is no period of the day during which children are withdrawn. However, parents are offered the opportunity, if they wish, to have...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Curriculum (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: Perhaps the Deputy is deliberately choosing not to hear what I am saying, but the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is commencing a review of the very programme the Deputy is talking about. It took over responsibility in 2012 and is commencing a review of that programme. I support the change in practice whereby children in most community national schools remain intact as a...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Residential Institutions Statutory Fund (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: First of all, I think that some of those comments were unfortunate and could be open to misunderstanding. However, as regards the substance of the Deputy's question, Caranua is an independent statutory body established under the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act 2012 to oversee the use of cash contributions of up to €110 million, pledged by religious congregations, to...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Residential Institutions Statutory Fund (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: We recently discussed Caranua in the House. Deputy Clare Daly put forward a Bill that was supported on Second Stage with a time delay, which gives us an opportunity to conduct this review. It is therefore being done according to a tight timeframe. Obviously, I want to ensure that we hear submissions into the review's terms of reference. As I have acknowledged, I think the comments as...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I acknowledge there is a problem in key subject areas, but there is no problem overall. Training of teachers involves about 3,800 students, which is split roughly half and half between post-primary and primary schools. About 1,600 teachers retire each year. There is a substantial net increase in supply each year. We are recruiting more now than we were. The current levels are far in...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: There is a difficulty because, as the Deputy said, people enter into subject areas without explicitly committing to a future in teaching. It is only when they do a masters that they enter the teaching channel. The working group examined whether it could introduce a model which could identify an objective intake for subjects such as chemistry, physics, maths or business studies that would...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: We will always need maths teachers. We will produce a response to the report and a specific response to the STEM work done by Professor Brian MacCraith. That is on our agenda for the current year.

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Curriculum (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: As he will see from my reply, the Deputy's depiction of the situation is a little inaccurate. The community national school model is a new model of multidenominational school which is not that well-known among the public. However, I believe it has a bright future ahead of it and a major role to play in providing choice to parents in the future. Community national schools are...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The new model of allocation is designed to more accurately reflect the actual needs in individual schools. It captures a more comprehensive range of needs in schools, including complex needs, measured learning difficulties and social needs, than the previous model. An additional 900 posts will be delivered to reflect this change. This year, more than half of special needs teaching...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I would like to clarify that no school will lose out. No school will see a child with complex needs lose any of his or her support. No diagnostic tests are required by the parents described by the Deputy to get supports from schools for the learning needs of their children. As the allocations are front-loaded, the big financial barrier that was in the way of parents is being removed. The...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: We are providing 900 additional resource teachers this year at a cost of €54 million. We are putting extra money and extra staff into resource teaching in a way that will ensure no school loses out. Schools that require a high level of support for children with complex learning needs, as identified by these tests, will get more. None of the existing schools will get less. This...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The report of the technical working group that was set up by the Teaching Council to formulate advice on teacher supply focuses on the development of a model of primary teacher supply and outlines the work that will be required in the future to establish a model of post-primary teacher supply. I intend to publish the report shortly. While the Department of Education and Skills has no...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I thank Deputy Byrne for raising this issue. The new identification model is designed to be transparent. Basically, it takes into account the children enrolled in the school and the places where they live and then the HP deprivation index is applied. As the Deputy knows, the variables involved in that index are demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate,...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: When Fianna Fáil was in Government and it was addressing this issue it did not use objective criteria. Its scheme was based on random collection of information. Political information was also brought to bear, which was not satisfactory. The current scheme is transparent. I have just explained to the Deputy how it is put together. In other words, the children in the school and their...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: It does not matter how many children are in the school, the same rule applies. In terms of the cut-off point, we use the same cut-off point to find the highest level of concentration. I would very liked to have been able to extend that to more schools but the budget I had available had to be used to support the areas with the highest level of concentration. As the Deputy knows, there was...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy misunderstands how this index is put together. The whole enrolment in a school is taken into account. We do not designate children as disadvantaged. We take the entire enrolment of the school and we develop a composite index for all of the enrolment in the school based on the areas from which the children come. They are based on objective, scientific criteria, including...