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

If the Minister asks, he will receive my local knowledge. I visited a company recently. I will not name the company, but I would love for the Minister to visit it at some stage - maybe not this Thursday because I know his schedule is full, but perhaps at another stage when he is in Cork. This company employs 65,000 people internationally, 500 of whom are in Cork and based in the city centre. The vast majority of them are PhD graduates. I recently attended there in late January. A total of 80% of their workforce have had to be brought in from abroad because they cannot satisfy what is required here in Ireland. That then has knock-on effects for housing and renting. These people are in high-paid jobs but struggle to even get a rental. We genuinely need to put the money in domestically, as well as bringing in international expertise. That is part of what we have to do. That is part of the success story to keep fuelling this. I was listening to a previous question in relation to the number of people coming in from abroad undertaking courses here and so on. There is a balance there. Nobody is saying we do not need foreign people to come in and study here, of course we do, but there is a balance there that we need to strive for. This particular company would put a spotlight on some of the difficulties that are coming down the pipeline.

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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