Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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512. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount that has been spent on the primary online database project since its inception; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4474/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The software development costs of the POD project to date are approximately €230K. A POD Implementation Grant was issued to every primary school in December 2014. The total cost of the grant was €830,518.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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513. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her Department hired or engaged any external expertise to advise them on data protection or data governance in relation to the primary online database; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4475/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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My Department has consulted and is in continued contact with the Data Protection Commissioner's Office in relation to data protection and security matters for the primary online database (POD). My Department did not hire any additional external or private expertise to advise on data governance matters for POD.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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514. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of staff in her Department that have been designated with administrator rights in the primary online database; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4476/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Four members of staff in my Department have administrator rights on the primary online database.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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515. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the primary online database plan will allow for data to be automatically synchronised with commercial databases used by schools; the details or control that her Department holds relating to the encryption, storage and access rights over data in those commercial databases; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4477/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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It is a matter for each individual school to decide whether or not to purchase and run specialist school management information systems in their schools. Some primary schools have such systems in place while others maintain paper or simple spreadsheet records.

My Department has provided a facility for primary schools to automatically synchronize data from POD to their local management information systems. This facility is being provided to remove from schools the burden of double-keying data i.e. entering the data once on POD and a second time on their local system. The data is transmitted securely from POD to the local systems using HTTPS. It is the responsibility of Primary Schools as Data Controllers to ensure that data held on their local systems is held securely