Third Level Education
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

A body of work is required. This is the first time this has ever been undertaken and there is a job of work to do to align the different rules and regulations across the Border. My Department has been intensively engaged with that. In consultation with my officials, DKIT has established a number of representative groups working to identify requirements and issues, and bottom out the issues around legislation, the awarding of degrees and other qualifications, quality assurance criteria and aligning the two systems on each side of the Border to make sure they can work together and find out what the model is to present these into the legislation that I will bring before the House in the near future. There has been active engagement between my officials, between Queen's University and Dundalk IT, and between the agencies of the Higher Education Authority and Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI on this end, and the Department of the Economy in the North. They have carried out a programme of consultation with key stakeholders, which is going well. A regulatory impact assessment is also being performed which will inform the legislative programme. It is certainly full steam ahead and progress has been good to date.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23