Third Level Education
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Colm Burke (FG), Cork North-Central

This is an extremely important programme, and I welcome it. To take a slightly different angle, I am disappointed by the lack of joined-up thinking in our universities about offering joint courses at universities in Northern Ireland and in the South.
For instance, I remember when I was Lord Mayor of Cork I travelled to Shanghai to set up a link between UCC and two universities in Shanghai, but we do not seem to have that connection with the third level institutions in Northern Ireland. The Department of higher education should try to expand that. A student could do three years in UCD and one year in a university in Northern Ireland or three years in UCC and one year in Northern Ireland. I do not think we have done enough in that whole area and it is very important we develop it.

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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