Questions

477. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the breakdown of the per-pupil expenditure figures by category, teacher pay, school capitation, capital expenditure, administration, transport, grants, and so on for the years 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. [60955/25]

479. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will review enrolment policies for students with diagnosed language disorders who are professionally recommended to attend specialist language units for part of their primary education; and if she will ensure that such students are not disadvantaged in accessing second-level school places in their local community as a result of attending a lan…

480. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the measures in place, and the further action that will be taken, to guarantee equitable access to second-level education for children who must attend specialist settings due to a language-based disability, so that they are not penalised in the admissions process for circumstances beyond their control. [61016/25]

490. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the expenditure on recruitment campaigns of international hiring of teachers; and to compare this with the estimated cost of teacher training for graduates who leave the State within three years of qualification, for each of the past five years. [61179/25]

491. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the number and proportion of newly qualified primary and post-primary teachers who take up teaching posts in Ireland within one year of qualification, versus those who emigrate or do not enter the Irish teaching workforce, for each year since 2010 to date in 2025; and the data sources used such as Teaching Council registration, payroll records or Rev…

492. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if crossdepartmental analysis has been conducted comparing the cost of teacher education with retention and attrition rates; and if there is an estimate of the fiscal impact of teacher emigration. [61193/25]

559. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth to address issues concerning the interpretation of the term “SSD of unknown origin” by SLT’s in the HSE to exclude children with disabilities from accessing developmental language disorder or speech sound disorder special classes (details supplied). [62128/25]

645. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will clarify whether the “above-SERC SNA” review process remains in operation under the new SNA allocation guidelines; if schools with autism classes will continue to be able to apply for above-SERC reviews throughout the school year in cases where a child’s needs cannot be met within the standard staffing allocation; and if she will confirm w…

670. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the status of the review into the upper age limit for school transport drivers contracted by Bus Éireann; when changes to allow drivers over 70 years-of-age to continue transporting children to and from school are expected to take effect; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58102/25]

457. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if there are any technical, legal, operational, or policy constraints preventing her Department, when publishing quarterly reports of payments or purchase orders over €20,000, from including additional columns that link each payment to its underlying procurement process specifically tender/contract title; name and address of the awarded contractor/su…

458. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if all contracting authorities under the aegis of her Department are in full compliance with Circular 05/2023, in particular the mandatory requirement to publish contract award notices for all contracts above €25,000; and if she will provide details of the monitoring or enforcement arrangements in place to ensure this requirement is met. [55073/25]

517. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if her Department and each body under its aegis discloses expenditure on external consultancy and adviser fees, by category (details supplied) in their annual report and or financial statements for each accounting year; if they provide direct web links to the most recent publications where these Section 1.5 disclosures are set out for her Department …

202. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 456 and 457 of 17 September 2025, in which she stated that her Department publishes procurement-related payment reports in PDF format ‘to avoid potential manipulation of the data contained in such reports’, if she is aware that this practice has led to instances in which supplier names are truncated or not fully…

458. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth to commit to funding for repairs, upkeep and inspections of the playground adjoining a school (details supplied), which is used extensively on a daily basis by every class in the school and consequently experiences significant wear and tear, the cost of which currently has to be met through fundraising by the local community group. [51502/25]

308. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the current status of the proposed services (details supplied); the progress made to date; the expected timeline for delivery; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50041/25]

456. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth to provide the web links for her Department’s quarter 1 2025 and quarter 2 2025 published reports of procurement-related payments or purchase orders over €20,000, in line with the FOI model publication scheme requirements; to confirm whether these reports have been published in full and are publicly accessible; and to state the planned publication da…

457. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if her Department will publish the procurement-related payment reports (details supplied) in machine-readable formats such as CSV or Excel on a quarterly basis, in line with open data standards; if not, the legal, technical or operational constraints that prevent compliance with the requirement under S.I. No. 376/2021 to provide such documents in ope…

1023. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the status of a tender report for a school (details supplied) that applied for planning for new school building; and the next steps that are required in order to progress the project if the planning application is successful. [41034/25]

1025. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth to provide the total number of grant payments issued by the Department in each of the past five years, along with the total value of those grant payments for each year, in tabular form; and to confirm whether these figures include all schemes and discretionary grant programmes administered directly by the Department or through its agencies. [41055/2…

331. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will provide an update on the proposal to introduce an additional secondary school bus service for students attending a school (details supplied); if the current capacity has been reviewed; and the timeline for when a decision on additional transport provision will be made, in light of ongoing demand in the area. [40383/25]

332. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 329 and 331 of 24 June 2025, to the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, which confirmed that responsibility for analysing collapsed or re-run procurement competitions rests with individual contracting authorities, if her Department has estimated or recorded …

333. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth to provide a list of all Public-Private Partnership projects under her remit, including project name, contract value, and start/end date since 2010; and to confirm whether any projects have been subject to cost overruns, renegotiation or early termination since 2010. [40412/25]

492. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the position regarding the Government's commitment to reintroduce therapists specifically speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and other relevant allied health professionals into schools as outlined in the programme for Government and publicly reaffirmed during the 2024 general election campaign; the reason for the delay in implem…

493. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth if she will review the current eligibility criteria for the school transport scheme, specifically the use of walking distance rather than driving distance in assessing applications; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39343/25]

396. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Education and Youth the number of purchase orders processed by her Department in 2023 that were not included in the published reports of purchase orders over €20,000; the number of purchase orders excluded due to their value falling below the €20,000 threshold, and the total combined value of those purchase orders; and the number of purchase orders excluded because they…