I understand the issue the Deputy raises about mature students and returning emigrants. Deputy Roche has tabled a question on that matter to which I will respond to in more detail later. In terms of documentation, that is a difficult issue. I am sure the Deputy is not suggesting that we should give grants out without any application process or robust checks. It is taxpayer's money that we are talking about. The last question I answered was about the MySUSI project which went over budget and I am sure we would all a…

This is a difficult issue, and it is one that I have engaged with the students unions on. I have also spoken to my officials about it on a number of occasions. If students are living with their parents, there is a working assumption in the system that they are being supported by their parents to some extent at least. Perhaps that support is not through direct funds. Rather, it comes in the form of accommodation, meals and so on. These are the supports that we would normally expect within a family environment. How c…

The trauma-informed view is extremely important. Having chaired the justice committee in the previous term, we saw many examples of trauma and how it led into addiction and triggered a certain path in life. I fully support a trauma-informed approach. It is one of the reasons I committed additional funding to the mental health budget in higher education institutions this year. On mature students, to recap the rules, a student can be assessed as independent if they have reached the age of 23 on 1 January of the year …

I have the figures for those who cited estrangement on their application form. In the 2023-24 year, it was 184 students; in 2024-25, it was 165 students; and in the most recent year, 2025-26, it was 213 students. When I said it was a couple of percent, I exaggerated. It is 0.19% of total applications. However, that makes it even more pertinent that we address it. There might be a tendency to say it is a very small number but if is very small, let us fix it. That is my view. I welcome submissions and inputs. It woul…

I fully recognise the distress that has arisen from defective concrete block situation in the Deputy's constituency and in other constituencies. The Deputy may be aware that I met some members of his group. I have not had a Ministry directly relevant to the issue but at the MacGill Summer School two summers ago, I sat down with some of the group's councillors and we had a very good discussion. It really brought home to be the trauma the Deputy and his people are experiencing due to that. I am pleased to tell the De…

More broadly, in terms of supporting students and families, particularly on lower income levels, my focus has always been on targeted supports. While I have introduced universal measures on fees, and I will continue to do so, my focus is on ensuring that, for people who are on the verge of missing out and would not experience college otherwise and for vulnerable families and people who may be the first in their family to access third level education, the focus of student supports is to get those people elevated int…

To reflect on the educational opportunities in Donegal, the Deputy's constituency, and I know he is a proud Donegal man, the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, and Deputy Gallagher have also made representations to me on many of these matters. I launched the veterinary school in ATU Letterkenny recently. It is great. There will be 40 vet places in the north west, primarily for large animal practice. This was badly needed because students had to go to either the UK or Dublin and many also travelled to Poland pre…

This is an all-of-government priority in terms of meeting the disability needs of our people. We made a decision at a Cabinet subcommittee early in the term that my Department can increase the number of therapists coming through third level and into the workforce. An interdepartmental working group is working with the Ministers for Health and Education and Youth and will examine the number of places we need to fill. We have produced a list of the occupations with the most critical skills shortages in terms of disab…

We are very much on the same page. I will give the Deputy a list of courses that have been identified in consultation with the Ministers for Health and Education and Youth and myself. Occupational, therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, dieticians, radiation therapists, radiographers, medical scientists, podiatrists, social workers and educational psychologists are on the list. That is not to say that there will not be further courses within that but they were the courses identified for the f…

I have explored that and my officials are actively exploring the apprenticeship route. There is also the recognition of private learning where somebody has worked in a related discipline and rather than starting on day one in year one they could come into the system midstream or at a more advanced stage, if we take into account their prior learning. The issue the Deputy mentioned in respect of CDNTs is a common one. She referred to Carlow CDNT as having vacant places. A placement often determines where a student pr…

I thank the Deputy. The PATH 4 programme is extremely important. I am very proud of it and the Taoiseach is very supportive of it as well. We have discussed it directly in Cabinet. It supports the goal of enabling all learners with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, to avail of higher education. I have visited a number of PATH 4 locations, including in Cork - I think it is called the field of dreams. I have been to the Trinity centre for people with intellectual disabilities. Each one is remarkable …

Yes, that is fair. I think 193 students are enrolled in PATH 4 phase 2. The original target or expectation was that it might hit 160 students, so it has gone well beyond that, which I am delighted to see. They are running across 11 different programmes. I will not list them out but there is a reasonably good spread geographically and they include the technological universities and the traditional universities right across the board, with multiple institutions participating. The way in which those courses or college…

I will address the UDL piece first. I thank an Teachta Connolly. I know Deputy Ó Cearúil is taking this question in his stead. Deputy Connolly has invited me to a UDL conference in University of Galway later this year, which he is involved in arranging and which I very much hope to attend. That will be a very important milestone in rolling out UDL more widely and discussions about this issue. In terms of mainstreaming our permanent funding, this was, to an extent, a new pilot programme when it was introduced in 202…

I am very familiar with the challenges of commuting from Kildare to various colleges. I have two daughters, one attending Maynooth and one attending UCD, both of whom recently graduated, and I have seen the commute, the grind and so on. The Deputy and I have worked together on improving public transport on many of those services. When I came to review the grants this year, I was mindful of non-adjacent students, that is, students who live 30 km or more away from college. The Deputy will appreciate, representing as …

In any social democracy, where do we draw the line and where should income levels and thresholds be? We are at a situation now where the threshold to avail of the minimum form of a grant is €120,000 per household, which means 80% of households in Ireland are eligible for at least some form of SUSI grant intervention. To the Deputy's broader point about how we draw the line, and there are a number of lines as you go through the graduated system, I mentioned to Deputy Charles Ward earlier that there is a disregard fo…

I wholeheartedly agree with the Deputy. Many of the thresholds are now so high and some of the benefits are so broadly available that maybe people have not realised they are eligible for them. I did launch a communications campaign in the national media last summer as a result of that to make people aware. Deputies may have seen it running across national radio and TV. That did actually drive an increase in applicants, which I was glad to see because we devise these schemes so people can avail of them. That is the …

That broad-based fund is available and it is an additional student support on top of the other schemes there.

I think an Teachta O'Connell is standing in for an Teachta Roche. I acknowledge that he raised this issue with me during Questions on Policy or Legislation earlier in the week. It is an important issue. This is a universal scheme. Means testing of reckonable income is applied to students on an equal basis. I will recap the rules that pertain to mature students. A student is considered to be independent or mature if he or she has attained the age of 23 at the start of the calendar year and has not ordinarily been re…

Lifelong learning is at the core of everything I seek to do in the Department. It is one of the reasons I brought the proposal for a national skills observatory to Cabinet last week. This dataset will enable future labour force needs to be forecast and emerging occupation trends to be modelled, predicted and met well by the education and training systems. Just last Friday, I attended a Skillnet event in Dundalk with my colleague, the chair of the committee, Deputy Erin McGreehan. We saw at first hand how Skillnet w…

The Government's commitment is set out in the programme for Government. It is no more and no less. The programme for Government commitment is to reduce the student contribution fee in a financially sustainable manner over the lifetime of the Government. Budget 2026 was my first opportunity since taking up office to begin delivering on that programme for Government commitment. I did so with an immediate permanent reduction of €500 in the student contribution fee. That became effective straight away. Students are ben…