Results 1-20 of 731 for at speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank our guests for their presentations and briefing documents. I do not intend to be especially negative but as we are discussing this business of forward planning, essentially what we are hearing is there is nothing to see here and move on. All of us know the situation from different representations we have received. By way of example, one should never talk about policy based on a...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: .... We are seeing a lot of response to demand. If there is a demand for special classrooms, then the Department may or may not provide them. Again, I could talk about Tramore but I will not at this point. We have discussed this issue but I am not sure whether that was done by the Joint Committee on Autism or the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research,...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: There are international examples of prevalence rates, particularly with autism, and we have no reason to think our population is different. I was not going to go there but as Ms McNally raised the issue of climate, I will refer to an issue that I raised with the Department at the education committee when we were discussing the public sector performance report. What the industry calls...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Yes but we need to be properly planning the active travel infrastructure. We can look at all the behavioural things that we like but the actual hard infrastructure has to be there, particularly when we are talking about children, whether at primary or secondary. We can lecture to people all we want about how 14-year old children should not be in a car going to school but if there is no...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: ...of different subjects but I have one final question on school transport for now. The Department's own briefing note refers to pilot projects for 2024 and 2025. I would like a little bit more meat on the bones on that, including the possibility of integrating with public transport services and so on. The other point I would make is that we are in May 2024 and we are talking about this...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: To change tack, I want to ask about the large number of children from Ukraine we are accommodating. It has been said that approximately 18,200 has been enrolled in primary and secondary schools. The Department probably has a good picture of mobility in terms of how often these children are moved from school to school. It probably has a reasonable line of sight on how many children are no...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: My last question is quite general. I have a real worry about casualisation of the profession, particularly at secondary level. Do the witnesses have detail such as can be supplied in the short amount of time available? It is a particular problem at secondary level but I know it is creeping into primary as well. I am referring to people who are full-time, permanent staff versus people who...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education (16 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: This results in a lot of non-specialised teaching, though. Ms McNally has used SPHE as an example. Many young teachers are drafted in to fill out their timetable. That is not how any subject area should be treated. Similarly, teaching English as an additional language is something I have experience of myself. It is a skill in and of itself. It is not a case of, "In you come and take a...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (15 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: 43. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the forward-planning unit in her Department has identified the shortfall in school places at primary level in the east Waterford area; the plans to address same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22007/24]

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I wish to raise an issue around joint family visa applicants. Like so many of these issues that we get into our offices it goes from the particular to the general once one starts looking at it. A constituent got in touch with my office. He is working at University Hospital Waterford and he is well integrated into both the workforce and the wider community and wants his wife to come and...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Similarly, section 42 refers to "other statistical information as may be prescribed." There is a strong argument for having the authority report on the type of funds. I know it is within the powers of the Minister under the legislation to ask for that. The legislation would be stronger if we expressly stated we would like to see where the money is and made that one of the reporting...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: ...or indirectly— (i) in equity or debt securities issued by a munitions company as defined in Part 4 of the Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Act 2008, (ii) or any financial derivative instruments, insurance policy, exchange traded fund or collective investment undertaking, whose underlying assets include equity or debt securities issued by a munitions company as defined...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: This is just an expansion of a provision that is in there already. We are looking at section 75(3). The amendment provides that: "An investment management contract shall include provision for enabling of the achievement of the obligations of the State under international agreements on environmental sustainability and climate change and national obligations under the Climate Action and Low...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank the Minister with regard to her taking amendment No. 18 back and having a look at it. It may look like throwing the dog a bone, in that it is the smallest and least consequential of these amendments. It is consequential, though, because strengthening this language can make a difference, even if it is only the substitution of a single word. I thank the Minister for taking this on...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I will again make the point I made at the outset. I do not, at the moment, get to legislate on anything else that is happening in the pensions industry. We are getting an opportunity to look at legislation to do with what will become a substantial part of our pension provision State-wide. I strongly feel that if we are looking at convergence, we should converge upwards and not downwards....

Select Committee on Social Protection: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I think we would accept the amendments are quite different in ambition and scope. I have amendments later on which I am confident that the Minister will take a similarly dim view as she has of amendment No. 13. I do not suppose all my amendments will be as successful as these, in terms of going back to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. I thank the Minister for taking it on board. It is...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: National Transport Authority (2 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank the witnesses for coming in. I am looking at the growth of the organisation since 2019. It went from an expenditure of €600 million to more than €1.6 billion. It is right to acknowledge at the outset some of the NTA's achievements, particularly the bounceback of figures on public transport post Covid. Ireland was very much an outlier in the European sense. If one...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: National Transport Authority (2 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is worrying from a value-for-money perspective when I look at the staffing cost. My other issue relating to the outsourcing of staffing is that I, as a member of this committee and a Member of the Oireachtas, do not have a great line of sight in terms of value for money. The Department surely has a role in this. I do not have a good line of sight in terms of the competencies being...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022: National Transport Authority (2 May 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is so important, as the NTA knows. It is when people will actually make their modal shift. If we plan them as active travel nodes so that a person can cycle safely to them, there are good lock-ups, and they walk onto a bus or whatever, which then connects to the onward service, that is when it will really make a difference. The death of modal shift is spending 40 minutes standing at the...