Third Level Education
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

The planned intake in the current year is 78 Irish students, with 26 of those in UCC, 32 in Trinity College and 20 in RCSI. The UCC outreach proposal I mentioned has the potential to raise intake by another 35 student places. All those measures combined strengthen and increase the opportunities for domestic students. It is the case that a course like this cannot be ramped up overnight because it requires extensive practical training. That can limit capacity, but my Department and the Department of Health are helping UCC to refurbish its dental school and hospital, at a cost of €15 million, to support future growth. With all these measures, we are working hard to increase the number of dental places and dental graduates. There is also additional funding for UCC across a variety of projects. I might touch on those shortly.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11