Results 161-180 of 1,020,526 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Mick Barry) in 'Committee meetings'

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I thank the Deputy. Reform of the early learning and childcare sector is included in the programme for Government, bringing together the best of community and private provision and the development of a new funding model to ensure an affordable, accessible, sustainable and high-quality sector. 9 o’clock To address pressures on parents, providers and professionals, I have always...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: One statistic that always strikes me is that Traveller children are 10% less likely to take up the free two-year ECCE scheme than children from the settled community. Those kids on day one of junior infants are immediately at an educational disadvantage and they are trying to catch up from day one. We are targeting those early years, but that also includes school-age childcare. It is to...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Parental Leave

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Cathal Crowe: 90. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the measures he has taken since the Government came to office to ensure family leave entitlements have been expanded, to ensure new parents have been supported and to build new entitlements to work-life balance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19136/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Brian Leddin: 114. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if there is a plan to expand to all employees the entitlements to flexible working and remote working contained in the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19218/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am also asking this question on behalf of Deputy Leddin. There has been huge progress in the amount of family leave that is available and things like work-life balance, in particular working from home. I think of the difference between when I had my first young fella versus my third. I had three days leave for the first. By the time it rolled around to the third fella, it was two weeks'...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: I propose to take Questions Nos. 90 and 114 together. There have been significant developments in the entitlements to different forms of family leave for working families in recent years. The Government committed in the programme for Government 2020 to supporting parents, including by extending paid leave to allow them to spend more time with their children during their earliest years....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: There is a lot there that I welcome, but what the Minister has said on deferred leave is important. The Irish Cancer Society has been in touch with me and several other Members of the House to get that point across. That is something we would certainly like to see. The domestic violence leave is a superb piece of work and I congratulate the Minister on it. Neither the Minister not I are...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: As the Deputy says, the Leave Our Leave campaign from the Irish Cancer Society is concerned with where a woman experiences cancer or a serious illness during her maternity leave and loses the leave while she is recovering. That is something I want to legislate for and I am looking to bring forward proposals on that. The point on the take-up of paternity leave and parents' leave is...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I would not underestimate the cultural handbrake that is also there. There is definitely a societal pressure, in particular on men, to get that fit of child rearing done and get back to work. That is the thinking on it. I do not subscribe to that view. I think that time you put into your child at home is incredibly valuable and, to speak to our earlier question, gives that best start and...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: One of the key reasons we made parents' leave non-transferable between the two parents was because there is that societal pressure where, if you can transfer it, in a lot of situations dad's time would have gone to mam and that would have been the end of the conversation. We felt it was important to encourage dads in every way possible to spend that very valuable and potentially now 11...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (30 Apr 2024)

David Stanton: I thank the Minister for that. I emphasise the need for a fund for start-ups. Right now, as colleagues have said, there are problems around the country where there is no provision. Feeding into the county development plan is a great idea, but my worry is that the county development plan in County Cork was published just last year, so it will be another four years before we will see action...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: The Cabinet committee on children, education and disability met two weeks ago. I presented on capacity, and this is one of the issues I flagged. There are guidelines for the use of school buildings, and we would certainly encourage as robust language as possible there. There are two elements here. There are after-school services and there are services that may run at the same time as...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Early Childhood Care and Education

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: 89. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when he expects to announce further details of the proposed equal participation model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19261/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am smiling wryly at the Minister's previous answer. Teachers are very protective of their classrooms: "If they come into mine, they better not mess up the copies or anything else." As regards the fourth strand of the together for better programme, we have ECCE, the access and inclusion model and the national childcare scheme. The first three I understand quite well, but we have a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: In budget 2024, I secured €4.5 million to commence the initial roll-out of equal start from September of this year. That allocation is equivalent to €13.5 million in a full year, and I will be very pleased to be able to fully announce equal start in May of this year. Equal start is a funding model and set of universal and targeted measures to support access to, and...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I believe passionately in this and that we should not confuse equality of outcome with the equality of opportunity we often get in a meritocracy, whereby you start from 50 m and I start from 100 m, we say the finish line is in the same place and we say, "Was it not great we all got to run in the same race?" That is not really how society works. Well, it is how society works but it is not...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Roderic O'Gorman: There will be a range of universal and targeted supports, just like there are for AIM. There will be universal supports as regards better training for everybody in settings in terms of social inclusion and how to act on that within the particular setting. Better information will be provided to all parents so they understand what the supports available to them are. Not all parents know...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Additional staff and additional training for existing staff make all sorts of sense to me. The Minister will know that better informing parents is difficult. He talks about targeting that group. Trying to get people to actually interact with the services will be difficult. Will the Minister explain to me a little more about, as I said, the basic nuts and bolts? If I understand this...