Results 121-140 of 19,925 for speaker:Norma Foley

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) provides financial supports to parents to help reduce the cost of early learning and childcare. The Scheme has undergone a number of enhancements in recent years to further improve affordability for parents. These include the extension of the Universal subsidy to all children under 15 and two increases to the minimum hourly subsidy, which is now worth...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Data (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The information required to give an accurate figure on the overall reduction of income from fees is not currently available to my Department. However, I am confident that the introduction of maximum fee caps will not impact on services sustainability and will benefit families who are facing the highest fees across the country. Around 10 per cent of Partner Services will be potentially...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Funding (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: As with all State expenditure, there is a limited amount of funding available in a given year and adequate budgetary controls are required to ensure that expenditure does not exceed the funding allocated for a specific purpose. The maximum Base Rate allocation is an enhanced budgetary control for Core Funding that is being introduced incrementally to manage and monitor the impact on...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Womans Health (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Government is committed to ensuring that workplaces consider the reality of employees’ lives and recognise that menstruation can be a key health issue for some women. The need for more awareness within the workplace of the impact of the symptoms of menstruation and related health issues is acknowledged by Government as necessary to promote changes in the culture, policies and...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Meetings (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: AGALI (Association Guardian ad litem Ireland) is a professional organisation for Guardian ad litem in Ireland formally established in April 2025. Through the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), we understand there are approximately one hundred Guardians ad litem appointed by the Courts to 3,500 children (2024). Approximately, seventy Guardians ad litem are members to the Association. In...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Guardians Ad Litem (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: In 2025 payroll budget for the Department has funded certain newly appointed staff members of the GAL Executive Office including a Director of the Service, Head of Corporate Services and the Head Guardian ad litem. A dedicated team of nine staff have also been redeployed within the Department to prepare for the commencement of the Guardian ad litem National Service. €400,000 non pay...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Guardians Ad Litem (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Information available to the Department of Children Disability and Equality through the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) for 2024 indicate that there are one hundred individuals appointed as Guardians ad litem to approximately 3,500 children. The Executive Office is in the process of undertaking an analysis of this data so as to develop an operating model including the numbers of Guardians ad...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Guardians Ad Litem (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Department is working to establish the new GAL service in line with legislation. Following analysis the Department is formulating a proposal on the potential pay and resourcing model for the Guardian ad litem Service for submission to DPENDR for approval and sanction The potential alignment of the Guardian ad litem role to a paygrade within the Civil Service will consider existing...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: At present there are 6 childminders operating with a National Childcare Scheme contract in County Cork. The Childcare Support Act 2018, which provides a statutory basis for the National Childcare Scheme, specifies that only Tusla-registered providers are eligible to participate in the Scheme. The limitation of public funding schemes to Tusla-registered childcare providers helps to ensure...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: School Admissions (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme provides free universal pre-school to children in the eligible age range however ECCE is not a mandatory programme. ECCE is provided by private enterprises, either privately owned or operated by community organisations. Services are contracted with my Department to provide ECCE at no cost to the parent and subject to the programme's...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Data (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government. Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% from the 2021/22 programme year. Core Funding application data shows that between...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Websites (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: I thank the Deputy for his question. Below, in tabular form, is the information requested. 11-30 June 2024 Jul-24 Aug-24 Sep-24 Oct 24 Nov-24 Dec-24 Jan-25 Feb-25 Mar-25 Apr-25 May-25 1-11 June 2025 0 10 20 69 174 89 199 432 ...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Same-sex Marriage (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Since the landmark passage of the Marriage Equality Referendum in 2015, important legislative and policy progress in the area of LGBTIQ+ rights and equality has continued. The Government has implemented two related Strategies, namely the LGBTI+ National Youth Strategy (2018-2020) and the National LGBTI+ Inclusion Strategy (2019-2021). In 2018, Ireland was the first country in the world to...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Child Poverty (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: I welcome the Child Poverty Monitor for 2025 developed by the Children’s Rights Alliance, which analyses and reports on child poverty in Ireland focussing on thematic areas across Government including early years, education, food poverty, income inadequacy, family support and alternative care, and play and recreation. Child poverty requires a cross government response and I am...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government. The early learning and childcare sector has expanded significantly in recent years; enrollments increased by 19% between 2022 and 2024 and registrations of new services have increased. This is particularly the case with school age childcare services with 261 new...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Contracts (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: I thank the Deputy for her question. Below, in tabular form, is the information requested. Year Supplier Amount 2024 Drury € 58,030.61 2024 Hanover € €9,840 Please note that the above figures relate to contracts managed directly by the Department of...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Programmes (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: This is not a matter for my department.

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Staff (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The number of staff by grade in the Equality, Youth and Participation Division in my Department is shown in the table below. Figures correct as of end May 2025. Grade Number of staff Assistant Secretary 1 Principal Officer 6 Assistant Principal 18 Administrative Officer 10 ...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Judicial Reviews (17 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: My Department is currently collating the information requested and a reply will issue directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.

Committee on Children and Equality: Priority Issues Facing the Department: Minister for Children, Disability and Equality (12 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: I am pleased to be here. As this is, as the Cathaoirleach said, our first engagement, I look forward to working with members of the committee, the Cathaoirleach and the committee staff. I appreciate the manner in which many members have engaged with me on a personal basis and through the briefings we have provided in the Department. I look forward to the years ahead. I will begin by...