They are. That is what I have just acknowledged. I acknowledge this in the House because it is not enough to identify problems in this place; we must also look at how best to fix them. I have asked my own Department to continue its consultation with the stakeholders. I have met the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and others in relation to this in order to examine the implications for recruiting and retaining apprentices, particularly in light of the scale of demand for key craft workers in the construction sector. T…

I am pleased to join my colleague, the Minister for Education, in speaking on this motion. I hope the passion I hear from the Opposition party on reducing student fees will also be delivered in the North. In having an honest debate about college fees, I have to note the cost of student fees in Northern Ireland, where that party has been in government and held the position of Minister of Education, is today the equivalent of €5,500 per student per year. There is a student loan system in place in Northern Ireland tha…

Read your manifesto, Deputy Donnelly. You did not commit in Northern Ireland to reducing student fees. A Sinn Féin Minister for Education presided over a student loan system and the fees are the equivalent of €5,500. In this jurisdiction, the Government, of which I am proud to be part, cut college fees last time for the first time in 27 years. This year there will be a permanent reduction of €500 in college fees for all families with a household income of less than €100,000. All student grants have increased by bet…

I thank the Dáil for facilitating this debate. I am proud to be a member of the Fine Gael Party that established the Department of Rural and Community Development. It is a Department that has become known to communities, community organisations, local authorities and small businesses across the country as a "can do" Department. Initially under the leadership of the former Minister, Deputy Ring, and under now the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, working with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, this is a Department tha…

I thank the Deputy for the question. I agree that this absolutely has to be, and is, a priority area. We need to, and we have, changed the policy on student accommodation. If the Deputy and I were having this conversation just before Christmas, or if we were talking about it last September, the factual position in Ireland was that universities had either decided, or not, to fund their own student accommodation and the private market had done that, and there had not been State intervention. I was very clear when I b…

That is a very fair question. I was looking back at figures while the Deputy was asking the question. We have approved €59 million worth of taxpayer investment in student accommodation projects, just since last December - certainly we did some before Christmas and some after Christmas. This has allowed projects to move forward in Dublin City University, Maynooth University, University of Galway and University of Limerick. The next ones we are now looking at are another three potential projects: one each in UCD, Tri…

This is a sensitive issue. The Deputy is correct on one level in that we absolutely want to make sure that anybody who avails of any accommodation gets good and decent accommodation, and that students are protected and are in an environment where wellbeing and standards are respected. We also do not want to accidentally over-regulate the older person who might, for example, be living in a local authority house, has a spare room and is thinking, "Will I rent out that room or not?" Under our new scheme, that person c…

I thank the Deputy for this question. It is a very important one because our greatest resource now for our future economic and social wellbeing is our people. We want to both retain and attract the best and the brightest to carry out research into areas that could make a fundamental societal, economic and educational difference. That is so important to our wellbeing. Under pillar 4 of our national research and innovation strategy, Impact 2030, we have very clearly articulated the vision that by 2030: "We will be a …

It would certainly be my intention to publish the report once I get Cabinet approval. I would like to get it out there pretty quickly and urgently. I would like people to see the benefit of their input because, just looking back, it has been very significant. An all-day in-person workshop was held on 8 March. Some 35 stakeholder organisations attended, including the Irish Research Staff Association, the non-EU EEA PhD Students Society-Ireland, the National Disabled Postgraduate Advisory Committee, the Postgraduate …

I appreciate the Deputy's support in this area. I want to do more to support PhD researchers. I think we all do. There are a couple of complexities that we must be honest about. For example, SFI and the IRC have a level of stipend, and there is an equalisation between them now. They did increase in the budget by €500, which is good but they need to go up further. That is okay; we will work through that. A number of other researchers do their PhD through other funding bodies, some of which are not within the remit o…

I thank the Deputy and I acknowledge her support for what we are all trying to achieve in terms of apprenticeships, and the huge potential that there is to expand the apprenticeship offering in Ireland. We now have 67 apprenticeship programmes. We also want to put it up in lights as another way of getting a qualification after school; getting a good well-paid job and trying to address the skills needs that we have in this country particularly around construction, housing, climate and the green economy. ETBs play a …

We do. I again acknowledge the role of the instructors, as the Deputy has done. We are working in a sector where there is a real passion from people doing their job. They stepped up and did a hell of a lot more than anyone could have asked of them and I acknowledge that today. Yes, we need to continue to expand the size of the workforce. If the Deputy is asking what I think the two biggest constraints are, truthfully, a big part of it is how we financially support our apprentices, for the reasons the Deputy stated.…

I will definitely look into the issue of unused capacity. I would be pleased if the Deputy wants to share any details with me. I want to be clear. There will be a need for more instructors but we will also have to physically expand the capacity of the workshops alongside that. The Deputy's question about new types of apprenticeship is key because of the jobs of the future. We have mechanics and that is important, but more and more people are driving electric vehicles, EVs. The curriculum has been updated so that an…

I thank the Deputy for this question. The Official Languages Act (Amendment) 2021 introduced a new system of language standards that will require adjustments across the public service. The Act brings forward a number of changes to Departments' obligations with regard to the Irish language and will see the imposition - that is a negative word - it will see the requirement to respond to an enhanced set of rules. Specific details of how these language standards, including the newly established competence levels, will …

I agree. I am conscious that the Deputy and I discussed this during the passage of the Higher Education Authority Act 2022 when much of the debate he, the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and I had was around ensuring the obligation on the HEA and higher education institutions to play their part in respect of our first official language was, let us be frank, more strengthened and prominent than it was in the original draft legislation. I will not use up time here, but as we develop our education strategy, there are now clea…

The ambition of South East Technological University, SETU, never fails to amaze me. It is a good thing. We have the Waterford Crystal site, there are plans for student accommodation and Deputy Ó Cathasaigh has rightly indicated that there is a Gaeltacht within the university's catchment area. I am happy to have follow-up conversations with SETU. I am sure the Higher Education Authority, HEA, would be happy to receive proposals in respect of the points made by Deputies Ó Cathasaigh and Mairéad Farrell. I respect the…

I thank the Deputy for raising this question. It must be a priority for the House and we must continue to fund higher education properly. We brought a plan called "Funding the Future" to the Cabinet last year. There are two parts to it. Some people would like to discuss the first part, which is about how to fund institutions properly to deliver the education system we want. We are fully committed to that, but a second part was also agreed whereby, in advance of the budget every year, we will publish a cost-of-educa…

I thank the Deputy for his support for this area of focus. We will publish the cost-of-education paper well in advance of the budget. I had hoped to publish it around the time of the summer recess, but I will certainly do so before the House resumes in the autumn. There will be plenty of opportunities for the Government, Opposition, students unions, media, citizens and everyone else to scrutinise what options the Government could choose in terms of grants, fees and student accommodation if it had X amount of money.…

To answer the Deputies Farrell, I have a clear view on the cost of education and how we can never let it be a barrier. This will involve the reduction in fees, improvements in grants and engaging on both issues through normal budgetary processes. I have been clear in the Funding the Future paper that we published last year that fees and grants should be considered each year in the round in terms of how we can best support students. Deputy Alan Farrell spoke about the SUSI grant scheme. It needs to be overhauled. Wh…

My plan is to make sure we use some of the resources available to the country to pitch in to meet the cost of building it. I was clear when I took office that I did not think the student accommodation policy where it is either left to the market or to the universities’ volition to decide whether to build student accommodation was adequate to the scale of a challenge that society, students and their families face. That is why since last year to date, we have approved about €59 million of taxpayer funding towards stu…