Language Schools
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Colm Brophy (FG), Dublin South-West

The programme for Government contains a commitment to publish a national migration and integration strategy detailing how the Government intends to meet the demands and opportunities facing Irish society in the coming years. The Department is currently working with other Departments to develop this strategy. As part of this strategic approach, I am reviewing the area of student permissions, including with regard to English language students.
All education providers are subject to unannounced inspections, online monitoring or random spot-checks to ensure their compliance with the interim list of eligible programmes, ILEP. This includes the maintenance of records and reports. All education providers listed on the ILEP must have clear systems in place for the recording of attendance and must clearly outline the rules on punctuality and the related penalties. Such records may be requested by the immigration service at any time and failure to provide them can result in the removal of a provider from the ILEP system.
The number of English language schools that potentially could have been subject to physical inspections in 2025 was 86. The number of in-person inspections carried out by my Department in 2025 was four. In 2024, there were two inspections; in 2023, there were three inspections; in 2022, there were two inspections; in 2021, which was a Covid-19 year, there were no inspections; and in 2020, there were seven inspections. It was necessary to halt inspections during the pandemic due to the public health restrictions. However, monitoring activities still continued, involving routine or specific requests for records and information relating to compliance with requirements and sector-wide surveys. Furthermore, up to and including 2024, the Garda National Immigration Bureau carried out further inspections for counties within its remit before the transfer of registration functions to my Department

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27