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

I will take from the Minister's response that he is satisfied or somewhat satisfied that enough courses are being filled and enough graduates are coming through the pipeline. The Minister knows the importance of Cork. He outlined it himself. According to the Irish Examiner , we are home to seven of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world. Approximately 14,000 people are employed across Cork in those pharmaceutical companies. We are a hub for the global life sciences. Maintaining that position is imperative for us in Cork. The most important thing that can help us to maintain that competitive edge is our people. As the Minister has said, UCC and MTU do phenomenal work. He mentioned the Tyndall National Institute. We are a hub of innovation. We are looking to grow the 14,000 jobs to 21,000 jobs by 2027. There have been recent job announcements by Eli Lilly, Regeneron and AbbVie. The demand is quite clear. The question is whether our STEM pipeline can keep up. Fundamentally, the Minister's stat data here is saying that while we have the highest proportion of graduates, we are going to come under increasing pressure in the coming years.

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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