This is something on which we agree. I passionately believe we have to reduce the cost of education. We have already taken a number of steps since the Government took office just under two years ago. I will not go through them all in the time available. There is the first increase in the SUSI grants. I accept that some of them do not take effect until September, but some of them have taken effect this year. There have been increases in the student assistance fund, and the Deputy and I have engaged on this. Indeed, …

I thank the Deputy for the points she raised and for the constructive manner in which she did so. It is important to say there are existing supports available, and I always say this particularly when I visit schools because sometimes students, when they hear about the cost of education, might not perhaps be aware of that fact. That is worth saying whilst trying to improve them. More than 65,000 students not only do not pay the highest tuition fee in Europe but pay either no tuition fee or a significantly reduced ra…

Surely the Deputy would like the Government to take an all-island approach.

It is a commitment under the Good Friday Agreement that I must fulfil as a Government Minister.

That is an extraordinary answer.

Hear, hear.

I am sure the Deputy did not mean it. I presume the Sinn Féin Party is very much aware of my commitments under the Good Friday Agreement as part of the Irish Government to have an active interest in many things relating to Northern Ireland. The Deputy will ask me in the Higher Education Authority legislation to take an all-island approach, and I do and I will do so. That is why I visited Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, and it is why we will deliver our commitments to students in the North. By the …

My maths skills are not great but we charge €3,000, which I see as too high. In the North, where Sinn Féin is in government, it is charging €5,434. Shame on the party.

Shame.

It should listen to the students and reduce those fees in the North. Do something about the A levels as well.

With the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, we will reduce the fees over time for students. We will ensure a sustainable funding model and we will put more into SUSI. We will work on an all-island basis to look after all the young people.

I thank the Deputy for this important and timely question. My Department is strongly committed to supporting the health of our population through the provision of graduates with the key competencies and skills to be effective in the health workforce and to support a range of clinical teams in our health services. I am pleased that in the two years this Department has existed, in both 2020 and 2021, we ensured additional places for nursing and midwifery. There were approximately 200, or perhaps slightly more, additi…

The Deputy is entirely right. Since giving my initial response, I found the figure in question from 2020. There were 135 additional places in 2020 and approximately 200 additional places in 2021. It is an increase of approximately 335 nursing and midwifery places over the past year. The Deputy is on to something and he is entirely correct. All of us, including me, regularly tell students about the options and pathways that further education has. It is true those pathways are not as developed as they need to be for …

While I always feel obligated to say the universities are autonomous, I do not wish to sound that I intend in any way, shape or form to be a bystander on this matter. They are autonomous but they are also funded heavily by the taxpayer. We have a right as an Oireachtas to have a policy view on this. Deputy Conway-Walsh asked about a sustainable funding model and there will be a list of reforms we can legitimately say, from a public policy perspective, we would like to see addressed. The pathway from further educati…

I thank the Deputy for his time when we visited Midleton College and Carrigtwohill Community College recently. I had a chance to engage with students about some of their pathways and options after school and to see the new and exciting plan for Carrigtwohill Community College. I, along with everybody in the House, am highly conscious of the rising cost of living and how we must work together to ensure cost is not barrier in education. Costs in education can come in many forms, as the Deputy correctly suggests in hi…

I ran out of time when referring to student accommodation. The Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and I, along with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, are working intensively to make sure that our technological universities can borrow for the very first time and start to build student accommodation. In Deputy Stanton's part of the world, for example, it opens up opportunities for the Munster Technological University also. The Deputy asked a very interesting questi…

Absolutely. I had started to answer the question, and I believe I have to conclude on it. I acknowledge the work the Minister of State is leading in this area. We are now trying to make sure that the range of supports available in higher education begin to transition in an appropriate way that works for further education and for community education. I will give a couple of quick examples. We have introduced the mitigating against educational disadvantage fund. Perhaps it needs a better name. It is the first time ev…

I thank Deputy Aindrias Moynihan for this important and timely question. The Government has increased the number of places in higher education by approximately 6,000 over the past two years. Obviously, that is a global figure. I would also make the point, which might be somewhat reassuring or informative to leaving certificate students this year, that, as of the CAO deadline last week, the number of students who had applied to the CAO relative to the same time last year was down by 1,141. We will have to see how th…

With regard to Macroom and Mallow and those courses specifically, I will check with SOLAS and the Department regarding the capacity to do more this year. Generally, when it comes to further education and training we tend to be in the space of being demand-led, and where there is a local demand we try to provide those additional places at the further education and training levels. I will revert to Deputy Moynihan on that. If there is a willingness and a desire to do more locally, then I am very happy to work with th…

Those extra places were over and above. While they may not have been ring-fenced for people in further education and training, they certainly did not take away from any existing places. I want to make the point that these were newly created places amounting to 335 additional nursing and midwifery places over 2020 and 2021. That figure will grow further. I cannot give the Deputy a commitment on the record of the House until I can be sure that I can deliver on it. I can tell the Deputy that it is an absolute focus of…