All of Mr Conor Murphy’s imported questions, contributions and motions in this mandate, newest first, including those assessed as not flagged, uncertain or not yet analysed.
The first meeting of the social enterprise co-design group was on 31 May. I was able to attend the meeting briefly, which I was pleased to do. The group is highly motivated to see strategic support for the sector and used the first meeting as an opportunity to share its experience and wealth of knowledge. There was an…
I am invited to a lot of events, as the Member will be aware. It is a question of juggling the diary to make sure that I can go to as many as I possibly can while retaining a focus on the work that I need to do in the Department. I am always content to consider any invitations that come to me to make sure that I do my…
It is incumbent on Invest and the Department to identify areas of priority, particularly clusters. The Member is quite right: there is a growing cluster with some big players, but a lot of small and medium enterprises are involved in advancing the sector. Aerospace touches on the areas of good jobs and productivity,…
That is the plan. From the court rulings, there was a sense that the court wanted to ensure that people were treated fairly. Many people entered the scheme on the basis of a genuine attempt to avail themselves of a support that was there for them. We have to ensure that people are treated fairly, but we first have to…
I have been attempting to secure Executive agreement on the future of the RHI scheme since 4 April. However, to date, it has not been allowed on to the Executive agenda. That is delaying participants' receipt of an uplift in their tariff. It also puts at risk the orderly closure of the scheme, as Ofgem has provided a…
I am happy to work with the colleges and universities to ensure that they do all that they can to allow people to come into education. They design some of their facilities around the courses that they operate, but they have to be conscious that the people who are furthest from our education system and employment are…
There is a range of support packages in those areas. We have to take our lead from the colleges and universities on the numbers. As with all such anticipatory programmes, it is hard to see what the needs will be over the course of the year. We generally manage to supplement the funding for them. A month or two ago, we…
Yes, they are. Many of us who have been here for many years, as the Member and I have been, pride ourselves on having a world-class education system. It is world-class for those it works for, but, unfortunately, there are far too many people it does not work for. In the situation that we are in, with almost full…
I recognise that one of the greatest challenges that we have is getting people who have fallen through the cracks in the system back into training and education. Previously, support for those programmes — I am sure that the Member is aware, as I am, of many groups that work effectively on that in our constituency —…
The intention behind the subregional action plan is to ensure that we get all the actors in each area to come together to identify the needs of that area. Some of that may be Invest NI work, some of it may be for the Department for the Economy and some of it may be for other Departments. We want to ensure that local…
The Executive's clear intention is to provide affordable childcare. That is of benefit not only to families, individuals and communities but to the economy, because it allows people to return to work. The Executive have therefore made not a one-off commitment but a commitment over the years, and I sincerely hope that,…
Provision of high-quality, affordable childcare is a priority for the Executive. On 23 May, the Education Minister outlined a package of measures for early learning and childcare that has been agreed by the Executive. One element of the package is a targeted business support scheme for childcare providers to assist…
That will require us to engage with UU. The task force will have oversight of and input to a more detailed plan on the allocation of that funding. It will be made available in the financial year to take forward opportunities to expand the Magee campus by developing the infrastructure and increasing student numbers. As…
A total funding package of £152 million has been committed for the expansion of Magee. That includes previously announced funding of £38 million from the Shared Island Fund for a new teaching block, city deals and a future fund as well as investment from the university's reserves. For the next financial year, the…
I established the independent task force in March under the leadership of Stephen Kelly and Nicola Skelly. The group has met twice, receiving presentations from Ulster University (UU) and Derry City and Strabane District Council. Local business leaders also led a task force discussion on future skills needs in the…
The easiest way to do that is to have more money. If the Member agrees with me that it is unfair to place that burden on young people, who get themselves in significant debt just to have the benefit of accessing higher education, the easiest thing to do is to increase the funding available to support them. Of course,…
We have just got our budgets. We have to analyse what we have. We recognise that we do not have as much as we wanted. Every Department is in the same position. I am sure that you have heard that from other Ministers already today. We do not have the amount of funding that we would like, but, nonetheless, we will…
The Executive parties made a commitment in the New Decade, New Approach agreement to get the numbers at the Magee campus up to 10,000. I intend to operate to that plan. I discussed with representatives from the universities and, since coming back very recently, with officials the ways in which we can work to ensure…
We want to see an increase; I have stated that as a desired outcome. The simple answer of placing the burden of the cost of that on students is unfair, because we are in a cost-of-living crisis and are putting thousands and thousands of young people into significant debt just so they can go through higher education. I…
I have no intention of increasing tuition fees, given that our students already face considerable cost-of-living pressures and that many take on significant debt to access higher education. I am committed to working with the higher education sector to embed sustainable funding arrangements that enable the sector to…
Across nearly all Departments, when Ministers came into office, our primary focus was to ensure that we resolved public-sector pay issues. With the exception of the Department of Education — I understand, however, that there will be, hopefully, some progress with the schools this week — those issues, by and large,…
At the joint meeting that I had with them, we did not get down to individual campuses, but I have had discussions. I met the Member's party leader in relation to the Castlereagh campus. I have had correspondence and issues raised with me by other elected representatives. I had the pleasure of visiting the college in…
The first priority when I came into office was to get the lecturers' pay issues resolved. I am glad that we were able to get that done. I have had a meeting with the principals of the colleges, and we will continue to bring that reform work forward. We want to make sure that we have a system that recognises the unique…
There may be a perception that universities are moving into that space at the expense of colleges. I think that work has been done to establish that that is not necessarily the case. We need to make sure, in a system in which we have very little money to spend — that is why the work between ourselves and the…