I thank the Acting Chairperson and it is great to see Wicklow so well represented here. I thank Senator Crowe for reminding all of us of that fact and for raising what is an important matter. My colleague, the Minister for Justice, sends her sincere apologies and asked me to provide the Senator with this update. I will also undertake to follow up and provide the Minister, Deputy McEntee, with the transcript of this debate and to provide the Senator with the detail that he has understandably sought. The Minister, De…

I thank the Senator again for raising this important matter and I will pass on his comments and views to the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee. The Government, which we both support and are members of, continues to prioritise unprecedented resource allocation to An Garda Síochána. This is about making sure the operating model ensures that those resources deliver in the best possible way for communities. The Garda budget provided by the Government is over €2 billion for the current year, and as the Senator will b…

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss plans for future investment in the higher education sector. I have just come from Trinity College Dublin, where we have made an investment that I am particularly pleased we have managed to make together. I thank Deputies on all sides. I know they all work on and support this issue. We have announced that €3 million will be provided immediately to make our campuses more autistic inclusive in order to support autistic students in navigating third level education. This €3 m…

I thank everyone for coming to this debate on Carlow College. I jest, but only a bit. I know how important the issue of Carlow College is to the people of Carlow. I know important it is to Deputy Murnane O'Connor. I acknowledge the very regular contact the Deputy and I have on this matter. I hope we can make real progress. I, too, pay tribute to Father Con. He is a superb leader and a very decent individual working with a great management team in Carlow College, a college that has contributed a huge amount to Carlo…

I thank Senator Keogan for raising this important and timely matter. Before I get into the substance let me be very clear that we do need an overhaul of the construction licensing system. We intend to bring forward legislation on this matter shortly. It will give Members of the House and the Senator an opportunity to contribute to ensure we have a modern fit-for-purpose safety system when it comes to licensing of the construction sector. The Government recognises that changes are required to the broader constructio…

The move will be very welcome and I am the first to admit that it is long overdue. Moving the process online will make a significant difference to people and will be a practical way to help them to go about their business. We want people on-site as quickly as possible and we all know that is important. We need to do so in a safe manner and I think that having an online renewal process will help in that regard. I believe the Senator will also be pleased to know that I intend to bring to Government a new planned lice…

I thank the Senator. She has shown a great interest in this matter, apprenticeships and the like since becoming a Member. My best guesstimate is around the month of October but certainly before the end of the year. We are working to make sure that the Safe Pass registration process fully transitions online by the end of the year. I know that the initiative will be very welcome having spoken to representatives of the industry, education providers and people undertaking these courses. In addition, we will bring propo…

I thank my colleague for his work on this matter. It is a good example of common-sense politics where one identifies an issue and bring forward proposals to fix the issue. I thank him for tabling this proposal at a meeting of our parliamentary party and for engaging with me on same. The proposal is good for students, local businesses and families. In addition, there is the concept that one should reward work and never penalise it. As the Senator rightly said, the main financial scheme available to students is the s…

I largely agree with everything the Senator said. When it was set as the income level in 2016, €4,500 was worth a different amount in real terms. The world has changed, including in the context of inflation and in terms of minimum wage changes. This is a common-sense proposal the Senator is bringing forward but I often find common sense is not that common. It is important when we have a good idea that we recognise it and try to move on it. I have yet to work through with my officials and with colleagues in the Depa…

As is Deputy Conway-Walsh, I am keenly aware of the pressure felt by students applying to enter higher education. I assure her and the House that I am taking action to relieve these pressures. I requested quite some time ago that my officials would engage with the higher education sector on the creation of additional places in, as the Deputy rightly says, key areas as identified by our skills architecture and, as she also said, in in-demand areas. These engagements are at a very advanced stage. I can inform her tha…

I would be delighted to come here and debate my record in the Department of Health but we probably do not have time in the 58 seconds available to me other than to say the number of people working in the health service grew every year I was Minister for Health. I agree with the Deputy that time is of the essence in terms of providing clarity on the additional numbers. We are honing in on finalising it. I expect the additional number of places to be somewhere in the region of 800 to 1,000. This is subject to finalis…

There are two parts to workforce planning. One is whether we are training enough people in any profession. The second is that if we are training enough people whether they choose to stay working in that area or to stay working in Ireland. The role of the Department is to work with line Departments to identify the number of places they believe are required to adequately meet workforce needs. Places are only part of it. I am very clear that we need to train more doctors in this country. It is utterly wrong that peopl…

As Deputy Ó Ríordáin is aware, on 4 May I launched the Funding the Future framework, which includes the Government's policy response to the Cassells report and the Directorate General for Structural Reform Support, DG REFORM, reviews on the future of higher education. It clearly sets out my intention to implement a progressive range of measures to address costs as a barrier to education, in the context of overall budgetary decision-making. Let me be very clear, the cost of education to families must be reduced in t…

While I am a little bit younger that the Deputy, I do remember the policy work of former Minister Niamh Bhreathnach, someone I hold in high regard. If I were to be totally honest, and this is an objective statement, the fees were reduced but the core funding piece was not addressed. What we are trying to do, and we have been working on this on a cross-party basis, is to try to do both. Education is a public good. Cost should never be a barrier to anybody attending education and I believe cost is a barrier today. If…

That is where I would like to get to but I do not want to mislead the House or students in how we will make progress in this issue. Students and families have been waiting too long for progress on this matter. We do not want to engage in a situation of creating an expectation that cannot be met. I would be fascinated to know if the Deputy or anyone else in this House were the Minister and had a choice to make in the next budget between targeting the supports at students most in need, in terms of student grants, or …

The honest answer to the question as to when we will publish the paper is that it will be in advance of the budget. I will get the Deputy a more specific answer than that. It will be in enough time for Sinn Féin's alternative budget or pre-budget submissions and for me to begin to grapple with and discuss these issues. One imagines it will be published in the autumn but I will provide the Deputy with a more specific time. In truth, we have not decided yet but I will come back to her on that. Addressing the costs of…

I thank the Deputy. The SUSI grant review is an extremely important piece of work. It provides us with absolute clarity on the key issues that students and other stakeholders wish to see us address in better supporting students and their families in this country. Even in advance of publishing the review, we had begun to make progress on those recommendations. We introduced a very significant reduction to the distance criteria. That means that many students will qualify for a lot more than an extra €200 in their gra…

I will certainly work with the Deputy and others in the House on the issue. In terms of context, I think it is important to note that we live in a country where more than four out of ten students receive student grants and more than four out of ten students do not pay the €3,000 registration fee. I say that because I often worry that a secondary school student might be listening to the debate and wondering if he or she can go to college. It is important to note that around 42% of students receive financial assistan…

I am very aware of the challenge caused by the withdrawal of the existing loan products designed for students wishing to study medicine through the graduate entry route. Indeed, in recent days I met students in UCD to discuss the issue. Decisions regarding which loan products to offer are, of course, a commercial matter for the banks concerned. That is a statement of fact. However, I do understand from students who have written to me, those I have met in UCD and engagement with the relevant higher education institu…

Before the commercial decision of the bank was made, I had already had a number of very useful meetings with students of graduate entry medicine. They made points like those made by the Deputy. From my former role as Minister for Health, I think that diversity in professions, and in the medical profession, is a good thing. I also think that diverse routes of entry into medicine are good. There is an idea that everyone must start the course immediately after finishing school. However, it may be advantageous to actua…