Further and Higher Education
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (SF), Kildare South

I believe the goal in this sector in the medium term, alongside mainstreaming courses for students with intellectual disabilities in our colleges and third level institutions, must consider a national centre to co-ordinate those courses and ensure standards across them. We should be looking at introducing a separate stream of funding to pilot a programme for neurodivergent learners, learners with complex needs and learners with rare diseases based on the same model.
As all-Ireland education has come up already in this debate, it relates to the potential to expand this model to the North. I see the real potential here to export a world-class model and make a 32-county initiative of this. Strandmillis University College has produced a feasibility study and there is plenty of scope and interest. At the moment, there are 11 courses open to learners in the Twenty-six Counties but there is none available across the Border. I have spoken with my colleague in the Six Counties, Caoimhe Archibald, and she is enthusiastic about this project, and I am sure she would be interested in collaborating with the Minister's Department on this issue. Dundalk IT and Strandmillis University College fall under the same governance structure, which should facilitate this. I encourage the Minister to consider extending PATH 4 funding to support this initiative through DkIT.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29