Education Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-12
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Pádraig O'Sullivan (FF), Cork North-Central

I realise that next year will be the 40th anniversary of the Erasmus programme and it has gone from strength to strength. Like the Minister, I know dozens of students who have availed of it over the years. I believe Ireland has sent more than 65,000 students since the programme's inception. It is a programme that we all support and would like to see go from strength to strength. The funding for the programme has increased to €40 billion now, which is far greater than its predecessor of €26 billion. However, because of the further reach to people not doing academic courses as the Minister has outlined, from what I am reading from the European Parliament debates on it, there is a concern that proportionately, the money going to each individual student might actually decrease. I ask the Minister to speak to that.

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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