Education Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-12
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

We have been engaging intensively with European partners on the future of Erasmus+. My officials are working closely at the technical level and I am working at the ministerial and political level to advance negotiations on this important programme. Good progress has been made under both the Danish and Cypriot Presidencies. As the Deputy knows, the Cypriot Presidency comes to a close at the end of June. I was in Brussels yesterday at the Education Council. I am pleased to advise the Deputy and the House that we reached agreement among education ministers at the Council on the partial general approach for the next Erasmus+ programme. That is a really significant milestone. The partial general approach is the agreed framework among officials and across ministers at Council to now take that forward to what we call the tripartite negotiations. I will be privileged to chair those debates over the next six months. We will be taking Erasmus+ into tripartite negotiations with the European Parliament to progress that. That is very positive and I am excited about the opportunities for us and the opportunity for Ireland to put our stamp on the Erasmus+ scheme when we bring those negotiations in.
One of the plus points of the new Erasmus+ programme is that it opens up integration to the European Solidarity Corps. As the Deputy will be aware, the Erasmus+ programme has been largely an academic college-based exchange. We are broadening that out to include community programmes, sporting programmes and youth programmes. That is really important because it widens civic participation. It is not necessary to be a student to be involved in Erasmus+; young people may be involved in many other strands of public life. They will have the opportunity to exchange with other European nations, centred around European values and have the experience of living and participating abroad, which is to be welcomed. It was very good news coming from Brussels yesterday.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-12