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

It would be regrettable if that scenario were to come to pass. I understand the concern and it is well voiced. We are at the partial general agreement, meaning that specific parts of the proposal have been agreed. Ultimately the budget has yet to be agreed and that is what we have to negotiate with our colleagues in the European Parliament as we move on to the tripartite stage. I will be meeting some of the relevant committee chairs in the European Parliament and some of the members of those committees. I will engage with them further in July, I think at the Strasbourg session, to try to move this along. However, the fact that we reached partial general agreement yesterday is critical because we could not have opened negotiations had we not done that. That will be part of the overall MFF negotiations.
It is also very much a goal for the State and for me to seek maximum funding for the Horizon research programme envelope. Some €175 billion is bracketed in at the moment, a very significant figure. That is available to Irish researchers, including small and medium enterprises, as well as the academics.

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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