Helen McEntee

As part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting schools, I recently announced €65 million in minor works and ICT grants. This funding provides schools with flexibility to address small-scale infrastructure improvements and to invest in IT equipment and digital infrastructure. The minor works grant is provided on a standard flat rate plus a per capita basis. This provides the most str…

To clarify on ICT, we gave a commitment as part of the overall strategy that we would provide €200 million to schools over the lifetime of the strategy. What had been provided to date was two amounts of €50 million but they were not exactly every year so they were spaced out. I want to make sure that every year schools get the grant, that they know they are getting it and how much. The €35 million…

I want to stress that the Department is there and available to engage with schools. While we have seen an increase in the number of people coming to the FSSU it is not to the level that we are hearing more broadly. I encourage schools which may be in difficulty and have a challenging time ahead with their finances to engage with the Department. The DEIS grants and status mean that students and sc…

The DEIS programme is a key policy of the Department to tackle concentrated educational disadvantage at school level. The Tusla education support service, TESS, is under the remit of my Department and has three strands: the statutory Educational Welfare Service, EWS, the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme. These all work extremely well and support a huge numbe…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, line 10, after “Education” to insert “and Youth”. I will speak broadly as I know this is the first time the Bill has been back in the House with this Government and this is the first time I am taking it as Minister. I am pleased to be before the House to progress Report Stage of the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024. The Govern…

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. There is nothing we can say or do that will change what happened to so many young people. That is not what we are trying to do here at all. With the introduction of a redress scheme when parameters are put in place, the challenge is that someone will always be outside them. It is difficult, whether we are talking about this particular scheme or the mot…

I move amendment No. 2: In page 5, lines 27 and 28, to delete “Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth” and substitute “Minister for Children, Disability and Equality”.

I move amendment No. 5: In page 6, line 15, after “Education” to insert “and Youth”.

I move amendment No. 7: In page 7, lines 12 and 13, to delete “by a registered medical practitioner or a registered nurse” and substitute “on behalf of the Executive”. This is a technical amendment to section 4. It was raised on Committee Stage by the Minister, Deputy Foley. Section 4(1)(d) currently provides for the provision of a home help service following an assessment of needs made by a reg…

I thank the Deputies. To clarify, it is for exactly that reason that this amendment is being made. It is to ensure it is not so narrow that it would exclude other practitioners who could make these recommendations. It is not to make it more difficult but to make it broader - I will not say easier as it is never easy - by allowing more medical practitioners within the HSE to make these recommendati…

I move amendment No. 20: In page 15, after 11, to insert "and Youth".

I thank the Deputies. A number of points were raised. The criteria that were agreed previously for the redress board focused on the abuse that was suffered within the institutions as opposed to those who were in the institutions. Deputies might say that, irrespective of this, someone was in an institution and suffered abuse, and I do not dispute that. However, what we have here has the same parame…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. More children than ever are accessing the transport scheme, at 173,000. There is a very clear commitment to make sure we expand that further and that as many children as possible can access it. Of course, that means more buses and more drivers. There are clear reasons as to why the 70 year age limit was set, but we have given a clear commitment in the pro…

I thank the Deputy for acknowledging the changes being proposed around the permanent posts. The reason I am proposing that is to make sure our young teachers have that permanent position so that they can access mortgages more quickly and that it gives them that sense of belonging within their schools. It is very much a decision for the individual schools as to whether they allow career breaks. We …

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out some of my priorities as Minister for Education and Youth and to share time with my colleagues. My objective is to deliver a world-class education system that breaks down barriers and ensures every child is supported to achieve their full potential. An education system that wraps around all children and young people in every community is essential if we…

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, for sharing his time with me and allowing me to contribute to this really important discussion. It is clear that we are witnessing war crimes every single day. Every day when we turn on our TV, open our phones and our newspapers, we can be in no doubt that what we are witnessing is a brutal war on children unfolding before our eyes. Every time we think …

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. We agree on a number of things here. We are all working on behalf of the children the Deputy has mentioned. We are all working to make sure we get answers to what has happened here. We have discussed this a number of times in the Chamber. We are all extremely concerned at the thought of a child having a surgery where that was not necessary. We can probab…

I cannot be any clearer with the Deputy on this. We first need to ascertain the facts. We need to ensure that we have absolute clarity as to what has happened, how many people are involved and how we make sure this never happens again. At the same time, we need to ensure that, where families need follow-on care and further information and clinical support, that is provided. The Minister for Health…

I do not think it is helpful for any of us to be discussing certain elements without having the full facts. I appreciate fully and agree with the Deputy that families want all of the facts. They want the information and they do not want it piecemeal. They certainly do not want parts of an unpublished document being published elsewhere and not coming through the Minister or not having that direct e…

I cannot be any clearer on this. The Minister does not have the report. She does not have recommendations. While elements have been unhelpfully published in online articles, the report has not been presented to the Minister. It stands to reason that while this work is being done, the hospital is not going to sit still and say it will wait for everything. It knows it needs to change its practices. …

It is clear that to meet the 18% forest target set out in our national forest strategy, we have a huge amount of work to do. We need to plant an additional 500,000 acres and, therefore, it is important that we continue to examine all of our lands, invest in research and make the best decisions possible. A huge amount of work has happened and more is under way to address our overall forestry target…

If we are to achieve our overall targets, which we have set out clearly in law, we need to take a number of measures. I have mentioned just some of the reductions we have seen, including in energy or agriculture overall, which includes our forestry targets, and focusing on our environment, overall economy, transport and private sector. The critical issue is that whatever we do - and I will repeat…

This is across a number of different avenues. Our farmers, business people, those involved in transport and private economy and all of us in our homes need to make sure we are doing every single thing possible to contribute to the overall reduction so that we can achieve our targets. It is something we are committed to doing, as I know the Deputy is.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. This is something that impacts a significant proportion of our population and there are very different reasons people may not have children, choose not to have children, cannot have children or are in different scenarios where it does not happen. It is always open to any individual or group of people to make representations, be it prior to the budget or…

Our job in this Dáil is to ensure any of the rules we adhere to and abide by and any of our taxation measures are as fair as possible. It is our job to make sure anything we put in place is fair and applicable to all citizens. It is about understanding what the potential implications are, what measures need to be taken and what the overall cost will be. The Minister for Finance said this is someth…