Minister for Education (Ireland)

Minister for Education and Skills
Incumbent Richard Bruton since 6 May 2016
Appointer	President of Ireland on the nomination of the Taoiseach
Inaugural holder	John J. O'Kelly as Minister for Education
Formation	26 August 1921
Website	www.education.ie

The Minister for Education and Skills (Irish: An tAire Oideachais agus Scileanna) is the senior minister at the Department of Education and Skills in the Government of Ireland.

The current Minister for Education and Skills is Richard Bruton, TD. He is assisted by:

The Minister engages in a wide range of activities relating to education in the Republic of Ireland, including policy planning, quality assurance and the provision of a broad range of services.

The department officially aims to:

In recent years some of these functions have been devolved to statutory authorities, in particular the Higher Education Authority, the National Qualifications Authority and the State Examinations Commission. Irish universities and colleges are to a large extent free of government control, with this being largely limited to policy formation and statistics preparation.

Until September 1997 the department was known simply as the "Department of Education" and on 23 March 2010 the department was renamed from Department of Education and Science to its current title.