Results 14,561-14,580 of 20,459 for speaker:Frances Fitzgerald

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Preschool Services (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I agree with the Deputy on the need for early intervention. It did not have the focus it needed for many years and I am trying to change this. I welcome the Deputy's comments because he is absolutely right. The evidence is overwhelming that if we invest in the early years, we will save money on prisons, detention centres and so forth. We must help children with difficulties at the...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Youth Services Funding (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: The youth affairs unit of my Department supports the delivery of a range of youth work programmes and services for all young people, including those from disadvantaged communities, by the voluntary youth sector. The funding schemes support national and local youth work provision for some 400,000 young people and involve approximately 1,400 paid staff and 40,000 volunteers. In line with...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Preschool Services (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I do not quite know what the Deputy is referring to when he mentions two free preschool years because this was the first time there was a free preschool year. It was made available at a cost of €175 million. I do not know the Deputy's individual circumstances but I acknowledge there have been some extremely good community preschools that have offered services, but I am sure they were...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Child Care Costs (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: There is a debate between what is in the Indecon report and the particular recommendations it makes and, for example, Start Strong. That emerged at the launch, at which many people favoured continuing with the universal approach and introducing a second year as a universal measure. It is worth noting the success of that first year, as the Growing Up in Ireland study, published last week,...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Preschool Services (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I have always said that I believe a second year is the right direction in which to go as far as preschool services are concerned and that we ought to offer a second year. That is the vision I have been working towards. I have never been able to say precisely when it would come about but it was always very clear that a number of issues needed to be addressed prior to the introduction of a...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Child Care Costs (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I am reviewing the two schemes we have, and that will be done in 2014. Budgetary decisions were made on supporting the preschool quality agenda, and improving the quality of services in early years is very important. We discussed previously how training and mentoring are a crucial part of working towards the extension of child care, and we want any child care available to be of high quality...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I have explained to the Deputy that this was a grant to an organisation to deliver a programme which it had been previously funded to do. It involves training the early years sector. The organisation had been delivering it and had conducted a number of pilot projects on it. The delivery of quality training and support has been a feature of the work these organisations did all along. This...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: It provided a training service to people who needed it. The early progress and the learning from the work undertaken by these two voluntary organisations, which have existing grant arrangements in place-----

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: Of course they have existing grant arrangements in place with the Department. My Department follows all appropriate processes, as do all Departments. They were invited to participate in the scheme in order to achieve the coverage necessary to train the full cohort of staff. I remember Deputy Robert Troy asking, after a briefing in Buswells Hotel, to set up a training fund. I seem to...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: Yes, in order to achieve the necessary coverage to train the full cohort of staff.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: What I was asked to do on many occasions was to have a quality agenda for the early years and part and parcel of it was what I have done and delivered within a couple of months. I have introduced legislation for registration. I have introduced legislation-----

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: -----for supervision-----

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I have answered the question.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: The training is being delivered by a highly credible organisation which has done this training previously and it was asked to deliver more of the training last year in order to ensure we would have people trained, which we have now asked for in the legislation.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Child Care Costs (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I launched the report and quite a number of Deputies attended the launch. I welcome the work being done by the County Donegal Childcare Committee. I asked Indecon to take a sample of the costs of child care for parents in Ireland and to make suggestions on how we could deal with that. The report focused on the difficulties being experienced by parents in meeting the costs of child care,...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: As the Deputy will be aware, grants were made available across the Government to a range of organisations, and in my Department we grant money on a yearly basis, all well documented, to a range of organisations, whether it be Barnardos, Early Childhood Ireland or Forbairt. For example, Childminding Ireland gets €340,000 and NYCI gets several million euro. The Deputy knows the list of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Early Child Care Education Issues (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: As the Deputy will be aware, I went into detail on the approach taken in this matter in a Topical Issue debate on 26 November. Earlier this year I announced an eight point preschool quality agenda to address issues of quality in the preschool sector. As part of this agenda, I announced that from September 2015 all existing staff working in preschool services would be required to hold a...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child Abuse Reports (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: A recently published report, ‘An examination of recommendations from inquiries into events in families and their interactions with State services, and their impact on policy and practice’ by Dr Helen Buckley & Dr Caroline O’Neill of the School of Social Work and Social Policy, at Trinity College Dublin, was commissioned by my Department. My Department...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child Care Costs (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: I propose to take Questions Nos. 79, 86 and 95 together. I am aware that lack of access to affordable, quality childcare is a significant barrier to many low-income and disadvantaged families seeking to avail of work opportunities. My Department has a funding allocation in 2014 of some €260m per annum which is used to implement a number of childcare programmes. €175m of...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Child Poverty (17 Dec 2013)

Frances Fitzgerald: My Department places a particular value on evidence - informed policy. The first ever National Longitudinal Study of Children in Ireland, Growing up in Ireland, is wholly funded and managed by my Department, with support from the Department of Social Protection and the Central Statistics Office. Findings from Growing Up in Ireland provide us with important evidence on children's lives...