I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, to the House.
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
School Staff
I thank the Cathaoirleach for seeing the importance of this Commencement matter and for allowing it to be discussed. I really appreciate that.
I thank the Minister of State for being here to speak about this national school issue. Keadue National School in County Roscommon is a two-teacher school with a current enrolment of 48 pupils. The pupil enrolment has doubled in the past two years, which is great. The school is, however, now at crisis stage in terms of staffing. The school made an application to the Department of Education under the projected enrolment criteria and was sanctioned a third mainstream teacher in a fixed-term capacity until 27 October. The school is currently two pupils short of the requirement to meet the criteria, as of 30 September.
The school has a number of Ukrainian pupils, some of whom are travelling from the accommodation centre in the Lough Allen Hotel, which is not far down the road from the school. The school has been recently contacted by the centre to advise that further families are coming to the hotel and will be seeking school places for the children in these facilities. Essentially, it is expected that the school will exceed an enrolment of 50 pupils in the coming weeks. The school has the capacity to accommodate a third mainstream class teacher. They have the additional room and they have it ready for use immediately. That is a big bonus.
At present they have 22 children from junior infants to second class in one room, which is four classes in one room - junior infants, senior infants, first class and second class. Then there are 26 pupils from third, fourth, fifth and sixth classes. That is a lot. The classrooms are that of a traditional two-teacher school and they are not large rooms by any standards. The current pupil-teacher numbers pose a serious health and safety concern for staff and pupils.
Among these large numbers in both overcrowded classrooms are a number of children with complex needs who are not able to function on any level because of the sheer volume of pupils in the rooms and the demands imposed on the class teachers to try to cover the curriculum. I have grave concerns for pupil well-being and staff well-being in those conditions, and I am concerned that burnout is a real threat in the school at present.
A number of appeals have been submitted to the primary staffing appeals board in absolute desperation to secure a third permanent mainstream teacher. Projected figures for the years ahead show that the school is continuing to grow rapidly. An application has been made to the local special educational needs organiser, SENO, with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, to open an autism spectrum disorder class at the school, such is the level of need within the school at present. The school will probably be pushing an open door with that unit because the Government, the Department and the Minister have been very focused on this.
I appeal to the Minister of State to ensure a third permanent mainstream class teacher is sanctioned at the school as a matter of urgency. I ask him to bring this matter back to the Minister for Education. I hope to speak to the Minister this evening. It is urgent that we have this matter on the floor of the House today. I appreciate the comments the Minister of State will now make on this matter.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir as an gceist. I thank the Senator for bringing to our attention the concerns of Keadue National School in County Roscommon.
Ensuring that every child's experience in school is positive and that they have qualified engaged teachers available to support them in their learning is a priority area of action for the Government. The key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on the previous 30 September. In the three previous budgets, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, reduced the pupil-teacher ratios significantly in primary schools, which has brought the teacher allocation ratio to an average of one classroom teacher for every 23 pupils in all primary schools, the lowest level ever seen at primary level in the history of the State.
Schools experiencing rapid increases in enrolment can apply for additional permanent mainstream posts on developing grounds, using projected enrolment. The school referred to by the Senator was allocated an additional temporary teaching post on this basis for September and October 2023. The enrolment required to retain the post for the remainder of the year was 50 pupils. The school's actual enrolment in September was 48 and the temporary post was to be suppressed at the end of October, but I note the figures provided by the Senator this morning.
The staffing process includes an appeals mechanism for schools to submit a staffing appeal under certain published criteria, including one specifically aimed at small schools such as the school referred to by the Senator. The school referred to by the Senator has submitted an appeal to the October meeting of the primary staffing appeals board, requesting to retain the additional post under the small schools criteria. The appeal will be considered at the appeals board meeting later this week and the school will be notified of the decision. The primary staffing appeals board operates independently of the Department and its decision is final.
The Senator referred to the application made to the local SENO in respect of the school. SENOs are responsible for defined geographic areas where they plan, co-ordinate and review the provision of additional education supports to schools. SENOs can be contacted directly using the contact details available on the NCSE’s website. If the Senator’s question refers to special needs assistant, SNA, supports, I remind him that the NCSE has the responsibility for planning and co-ordinating school supports for children with special educational needs. The NCSE has published the SNA allocations for the 2023-24 school year. A school can apply to the NCSE for a review of its SNA allocation if it is insufficient to meet the needs of its students, which is what the Senator seems to be saying this morning. I certainly will take these matters back to the Minister for Education on the Senator's behalf.
I thank the Minister of State. After I compiled the figures I gave him, I received a telephone call to say there is even further good news in that a family is moving into the village with three children eligible to attend the national school. I did not include them in my figures. That family will not be resident in the village for approximately five weeks. I welcome the decision to which the Minister of State referred. It is really important that when that decision is implemented, which may be this week or next, we get a third teacher for Keadue National School. I will pursue the issue in regard to special needs provision. In many respects, as I said, we are pushing at an open door on this matter with the Department and the Government.
In the Minister of State's capacity as having responsibility for heritage, I invite him to visit the beautiful village of Keadue, which is a national, regional and many times local winner in the Tidy Towns competition. It is a most beautiful village and the school is part of all that goes on there and is important for the whole community. There is a lot of architecture and heritage around the place as well as biodiversity around the school.
I would be more than happy to take the Senator up on his invitation. I was in Roscommon until late last evening. It is a county I love dearly and I would be more than happy to visit Keadue at some point if the Senator sends me an invitation.
The difference a new family can make in a community is crucial in that it may achieve the critical point whereby an additional one or two pupils are needed to attain the extra teaching and other supports for a school. Ukrainian families coming into rural communities have bolstered the numbers in many rural schools and given them that critical mass. That is hugely welcome. The Minister has provided in her response a very strong pathway forward. I hope the response is positive for Keadue National School. I am more than happy to bring the matter to her attention.
I welcome to the Public Gallery the students from Rosary College in Crumlin who are on a school tour. I thank them for being here and hope they have an educational, positive and good time in Leinster House.
Office of Public Works
The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, is, as always, very welcome to the Chamber. It is unfortunate the Minister of State with direct responsibility in the matter I am raising, Deputy O'Donovan, is unavoidably absent. I appreciate the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, stepping in for him this morning. I know he will relay back to his colleague our deliberations and discussion.
It is well documented that 235 acres of the Castletown lands in Celbridge, County Kildare, were sold on the open market earlier this year. The OPW was outbid in its efforts to reunite those lands with the wonderful Castletown House. There is an absolutely incredible community resolve to ensure the right thing happens. Local people have an amazingly singular and unified purpose, which is reflected among both local politicians and all Oireachtas Members representing the Kildare North constituency. The local community is absolutely committed and dedicated to resolving this matter. People in Celbridge are exceptionally dignified in their campaigning but they should not be underestimated. We want to see the lands reunited and the M4 gate open for access to cars, as was the case previously.
Together with other Oireachtas Members, I recently attended a meeting at which the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, was present. He stated, as was later confirmed in a press release, that the OPW is committed to exploring all options. He reassured me at the meeting that people in the OPW are not sitting around staring at a telephone and waiting for it to ring. I have a letter to hand, which is in reasonably wide circulation, and it is from the solicitors acting for the developer to the Chief State Solicitor's office. The solicitors want to reopen dialogue on the terms that two valuers would be appointed, as is the norm, they would agree a valuation and would then meet with the OPW with the aim of reaching a mutually acceptable agreement on the current market value, with each party to pay its own costs. This happens all the time with valuations. Two independent experts are appointed and a value is agreed. It is not an airy-fairy valuation; it takes into consideration the detail of the given circumstances.
I respectfully suggest there is enough sentiment in this letter, which has been circulated reasonably widely, to test the bona fides of the developer. It behoves us to do our utmost to see whether this proposal can be the breakthrough that breaks the impasse. On foot of the letter, I hope the OPW will be very active in ensuring a meeting happens. The previous mediation failed. We are not allowed to say what it involved because the rules in that regard are very strict. This will be a more transparent process. For once and for all, we will know whether an agreement is possible. I ask the Minister of State to help by emphasising to his ministerial colleague that this is a potential way forward. The very least that must be done is that we test the bona fides of this latest attempt at agreement.
I thank Senator Martin for raising this important issue. I am taking the matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, who, unfortunately, is not available this morning. As the Senator can appreciate, this is very much an ongoing and fluid scenario and the situation locally at Castletown is changing day by day. I will provide some up-to-date information, taking note of the letter the Senator has just brought to my attention.
Castletown House is an 18th-century neo-Palladian country house built within an extensive estate. In 1994, the OPW took responsibility for Castletown House and estate. Initially, this included only 13 acres of land with the house. It has long been the policy of the OPW to seek to reunite the historic Castletown estate. In 1997, 100 acres south of the house were acquired. The farmyard adjacent to the house was acquired in 2001. In 2006, lands associated with Batty Langley Lodge were acquired, with former Coillte lands to the north and east of the House acquired in 2007. Since 2008, the OPW has reassembled 227 acres of the original 580 acres of land that formed the historic demesne.
As part of its policy to seek to reunite the historic Castletown demesne lands with the house and lands in the care of the State, the OPW has sought on several occasions to purchase the lands from Janus Securities, including when the lands were offered for sale on the open market in 2022. However, despite the best efforts of the OPW, the State was outbid in the open market process and, ultimately, the lands were acquired by a private purchaser. The OPW entered into negotiations with the new landowners on a licence agreement in May 2023. While the OPW was prepared to pay the significant uplift in the licence fee the landowners were seeking, it could not agree to the unreasonable terms of the licence agreement. The landowners then allowed the use of the M4 access road and car park until 15 September 2023.
In the interest of ensuring access for the approximate 25,000 annual visitors to Castletown House and the approximate 1 million visitors to the estate, the OPW continued to work with the landowners. Over the summer, the OPW sought to purchase the land from the private landowner. This was unsuccessful. In September, the OPW engaged in a mediation process with the landowner but there was no outcome, which was disappointing. The OPW has a responsibility to ensure public access to Castletown House and estate and is funded by the Oireachtas to do so. In furtherance of this public policy objective, the OPW explored creating a small car park within the State-owned lands. The purpose of this was to ensure adequate access to Castletown House, which is of national and international importance. The proposed temporary car park would ensure access to the primary historic route through the Celbridge Gate and over Lime Avenue to Castletown House. It would have enhanced facilities for cyclists and people with a disability.
After a robust and positive engagement with the local community and having listened carefully to the views expressed, the OPW did not proceed with its temporary car park plans. The only vehicular access route available to the OPW is Celbridge Avenue. As the car park did not proceed, the impact of this is shared access, with pedestrian priority, through the Celbridge Gate and Lime Avenue. A community protest group at the main entrance has blocked vehicular access to OPW staff and essential suppliers and contractors since 30 September.
In recent weeks it has not been possible to collect refuse from the site, repair the heating system, repair visitor toilets and have any other maintenance work completed. This situation is unacceptable for staff to operate within. The Health, Welfare and Safety at Work Act requires the OPW, as an employer, to operate a safe working environment.
The OPW has continually sought to find a solution to these challenges within the community. Following intensive dialogue, and with the assistance of an independent facilitator, the OPW secured the agreement of three out of four local community groups to allow for limited access to Castletown House and estate for OPW staff, as well as essential suppliers and contractors. If it is okay, Acting Chairperson, I will come back in with a supplementary response.
I thank the Minister of State. It has been said on many occasions that we acknowledge the very many millions of euro invested by the OPW to secure as much of the lands as it has done to date. The proposal to create a carpark in the meadow, which immediately adjoins the River Liffey, was off the wall and might not have been in compliance with planning laws. Thankfully, the proposal has been abandoned.
The proposal to allow general access up the avenue for all vehicles is not in keeping with the integrity of the building. The local action group, led by Kevin Mullin, has made it clear that all people who require access and can prove it will never be obstructed. I do not know the developer but I have seen enough and read enough in this letter, which has come into my possession, to say that this matter warrants exploration with the developer and that we should reopen negotiations with the developer forthwith, which I hope will happen. The developer has said that he is willing to sell at market value and it behoves us all to ensure this happens.
I am sure that the Senator will support the OPW in agreeing that while it would be preferable for these lands to be reunited with the historic demesne, this will only be possible where acceptable terms can be agreed. Again, I note the letter that he has brought to my attention here today. The OPW negotiates on the acquisition of lands, leasing of properties and access terms on behalf of the State across Ireland. Commercial sensitivity is key to these negotiations, as I am sure the Senator can appreciate. As these negotiations are ongoing, it would not be prudent for me to comment any further on the matter. However, I can assure the Senator that the OPW remains committed to acquiring the lands that formed part of the original estate, where they became available, to reunite the historic demesne. The OPW will continue acquiring suitable lands, where possible. Again, I reassure the Senator that every effort is being made.
I thank the Minister of State.
Medicinal Products
The Minister of State is more than welcome. My Commencement matter calls on the Minister for Health to provide an assurance that the HSE will give permission to continue to approve and reimburse new medicines from next January onwards. This is a very significant issue. Over the past three years €100 million was provided for new medicines and such expenditure has been greatly needed in this changing world. The new medicines budget over the past three years gave people hope but, unfortunately, that hope has now been taken away and the people who need to access new medicines are frustrated. We are looking at continuous evaluation of how these new medicines affect people and a continuing pipeline. We now have a stop-start scenario because we had money but now we do not which has led people to lose faith in the system.
Eight new medicines have completed a technical assessment and a price has been agreed, which will benefit more than 323 patients who have cancer, but that initiative will be stopped. We are now looking at a scenario where another 15 drugs are undergoing a technical assessment and in the pipeline, which has the potential to help another 1,000 patients who need the medication. There are also more than 3,500 patients who have other issues which range from HIV to autoimmune diseases, etc. Again, all of these patients will be affected by a pipeline of medication and there is significant frustration about funding. This is a huge issue for Ireland Inc. We have had a budget and there was talk of a huge surplus of money gathered from corporate taxes. A lot of those taxes come from the pharma industry and in my part of the world the pharma industry is huge. If we are not going to promote the work done by the pharma industry in Ireland then that is a poor reflection on us as a State. It is extremely important that we have joined-up thinking that promotes the people who pay taxes and provides new medicines that save lives.
In 2007, my late brother, Ger, was on a drug called Interferon that cost €5,000 a shot and was paid for by his health insurance company. The drug gave him an extra 18 months of life and he died from skin cancer in 2009. We now have a two-tier system by not having these medicines put on the actual system. There is potential for people to get these medicines through private health insurance. That is a society that we have moved away from. We talk about Sláintecare and how we need a new system of medicines for various issues. My family saw the benefit of these medicines because Ger had an extra 18 months of precious life and extra time is what patients seek now. They want access and a continuation of service which will give them hope but budget issues have taken away their hope.
Over the last three years €100 million was provided but now there is nothing out of a health budget of €22.5 billion. I do not understand how we cannot find the money because it is really a small amount of money and will save lives, which is why I tabled my Commencement matter. I have no other agenda except what I saw at home many years ago. I saw how these medicines have the potential to give people extra time and, in some cases, they change outcomes. We need to do more to find the money required for this industry.
I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly.
The State acknowledged the importance of access to medicines and has made considerable investments in new medicines in recent years. This year, a record of almost €3 billion of public funding will be spent on medicines for patients in Ireland. This represents almost €1 of every €8 spent by the State on healthcare. This is in the context of a total allocation for the health service for 2024 of €22.5 billion, as stated by the Senator. This level of investment is unprecedented in supporting patients through the availability of the latest and wide-ranging medicines. The last three budgets have included dedicated funding for new medicines of €98 million. This has enabled the HSE to approve reimbursement for 127 medicines and-or licence extensions, including 50 for treating cancer and 39 for treating rare diseases. However, expenditure has grown rapidly, and we must now ensure the sustainability of medicines expenditure. We must strive to maximise the available investment to provide as many people as possible with access to the medicines they need. In this context, there are policy and operational options being pursued and these will be intensified, including, for example, maximising the use of generic or biosimilar medicines across community and hospital settings.
Going into 2024, the Department of Health, the HSE, and all relevant agencies and stakeholders will place a priority focus on the efficient and effective use of available resources. Cost reductions in the acute and community settings can then be considered for reinvestment, as appropriate.
There will be investment to enhance the HSE’s pricing and reimbursement process for medicines. This is a recommendation by the working group established after the publication of the Mazars report, which the Minister for Health published in February.
Investing in capacity here will support the agencies involved in operating to the fullest of their abilities. This will enable them to conduct timely and efficient evaluations of medicines for reimbursement. More important, it will further support efforts to improve the sustainability of the State's pharmaceutical expenditure. It will also maximise the use of this substantial public investment to support access to more medicines for more people.
The State cannot increase the level of savings without additional capacity in this area. An element of this is quicker assessment of biosimilar and generic medicines, which will drive sustainability in the medicines budget. The Mazars implementation working group will continue its work and is due to report to the Minister for Health in the coming months.
The measures I have outlined here will form an essential tool for the State to deliver sustainability in the medicines budget.
Sustainability is essential to ensure patients in Ireland can benefit from the best treatments possible. The Senator raised the issue of the corporate taxes from the pharmaceutical sector in particular and other sectors, but there is a recognition that these corporate taxes are not always completely stable. This sustainability work in our expenditure on pharmaceuticals is absolutely vital.
Generic medicines are a real issue in a certain setting. However, in regard to the new medicines, that cutting-edge technology, I refer back towards 2007 when Interferon cost €5,000 a shot for Ger, at the time. He got it every month for 12 months. That was the kind of expenditure required to actually give Ger the life he had. I argue this is not about generic medicines. This is about the poor people I am talking about, such as the 322 who effectively could be losing their actual potential to get better care and better quality of life, or the thousands involved in another 15 drugs that, if approved, could bring major changes to their lives. These are the people who need special care and attention. Generic medicines will not solve this. Sometimes it can make a huge issue in their lives and change lives, and sometimes it just gives extra time. The one thing they do not have is time. The one thing we need to make sure the Government does here is act appropriately regarding the time issue.
I appreciate the points made by the Senator, particularly in regard to the case he outlined about his own family. Certainly, that additional 18 months must have been immense comfort to his family at the time. It certainly gives a family additional time to come to terms with the loss of a loved one. It is critically important that the Mazars work is concluded and the recommendations brought forward.
A central component of the pharmaceutical expenditure is the HSE's pricing and reimbursement process for medicines. Following the publication by the Minister of the Mazars report which reviewed this process, a working group has been established to implement the recommendations of the report. After engagement with stakeholders, including patients, industry and clinicians, the group recommended approving capacity in key areas of the pricing and reimbursement process. An important structural measure to be brought in 2024 provides investment for the increased capacity recommended by the group. This will improve the functioning of the process and support efforts to reach sustainability in medicine spending. These improvements will strengthen access to medicines for patients in Ireland, which I am sure the Senator will welcome.
I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House this morning. I thank Senator Lombard.
Further and Higher Education
I welcome the Minister, Deputy Harris. It is great to see a line Minister here. I know the Minister looks after people very well, so Senator Emer Currie is very lucky.
I am delighted to see the Minister, Deputy Harris, here for this Commencement matter this morning. I will start by telling him about my own education. I had my primary education in County Tyrone. I passed my 11-plus and went to grammar school for one year in Donaghmore convent. Then I came south and went to secondary school for the full six years in the South and then I went up to Queen's University Belfast for my degree. That is an all-island education. I went to university in 1997, so it was before the Good Friday Agreement.
We have to recognise there has been a failure in the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement over 25 years if there is now less student mobility than there was then. In my family, I am the youngest of five. We were in County Tyrone when the other four chose their universities. One went to Queen's, one to Ulster University, one to Manchester University and one came to Dublin to UCD. That was reflective of the choices and the patterns that were there at the time. It is incredibly frustrating to know that it is now harder, not easier, to study across the Border. We have taken away the Border but there are actually more barriers, not fewer, in accessing each other's education systems.
I know that from the research we have just seen from the ESRI. Just 0.6% of students in the South are from the North. In Northern Ireland just 2.4% of students come from across the Border. In real numbers, 1,255 students from the North attend university in the South at the moment and a measly 1,170, which is less overall, have gone north. That compares with 4,000 students in the South who have gone to Britain and then 13,685 Northern Irish students who have gone to England, Scotland and Wales. The mobility at third level at this moment in time is pitiful compared with what it could be.
No one can deny the Minister's commitment to reforming the CAO or the shared island vision for education. To summarise some of that, the Minister is changing how people can access degree courses outside of the CAO, is introducing cross-Border apprenticeship programmes, has established the Atlantic Technological University in the north west, with growing links to Derry and investment of €45 million in the Magee campus, and has provided access to places in Northern Ireland for people to study medicine, with opportunities for those students then to take up internships in the HSE, 200 new nursing places in the North this year, and 50 places in therapy disciplines for occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists that students in the South can access. He has seen through the promise to keep the Erasmus programme for Northern Ireland students, which would have been a travesty of Brexit, and overseen €40 million of shared island North-South research funding, of which this ESRI funding is part. I know he is committed to this.
I just want to mention the Secondary Students' Union of Northern Ireland, SSUNI, and the practical issues. It is the norm in the North to do three A-levels, not four. It is required to do four here. To get maximum points here, not three but four A-stars are necessary, including maths and most likely a foreign language, even though the system just is not there in the North to support foreign languages. There are practical issues that could be addressed, including the lack of guidance for students in the South accessing the United Kingdom accreditation service, UKAS, system and students from the North accessing the CAO. I hope the Minister can update us on his plans to reform this.
I thank Senator Currie for raising this issue. I would not not be here to take this because I know how sincere she is in her work on this, how sincere her dad, the great Austin Currie, was in relation to this work and to building peace on this island, and I know how incredibly important he and his colleagues in the SDLP, especially John Hume, identified education to be. We have to go back to well before my time in public life, decades back to the peace marches, which highlighted education as key to embedding peace. Of course education for education's sake is extraordinarily important, particularly when you look at cities like Derry where there had been an underprovision of it. However, education is also a way of getting to know each other as a non-threatening enabler for peace.
I met the great Senator George Mitchell, who played such a huge role in our peace process here, very recently. I met him in his role as Chancellor Emeritus of Queen's University Belfast. We discussed how I genuinely believe the next phase in terms of peace building and a shared island, or whatever people wish to call it, but getting to know each other better and working and living together in peace, has to be education. The Senator is so right to highlight this because there is what I believe is low-hanging fruit, quite frankly, in terms of what more we can do. I absolutely wanted to be here to assure her that I am dedicated to working with her and others, to find ways to further develop and support education on an all-island basis.
The ESRI report which, I was honoured to launch last month, really did show both the scale of the challenge for all the reasons the Senator highlighted in terms of the numbers and where we are versus where we wish to be, but also some practical things that could be done. That is why I actually found the report to be quite positive and I said this to the authors of the report. It was not just a report that defined the problem or came up with lofty solutions. It was actually a report that gives us a concrete action plan as to what we need to do. On the back of that I am absolutely determined to work to make progress.
It goes without saying that higher education institutions are autonomous. We know that is the case. It is for them to decide their admissions policy. No one wants me doing that. Despite this, there is a positive role we can play - I want to play it - in helping, supporting and resourcing universities on the island of Ireland, North and South, to do more in this space.
I welcome the fact that an expert working group has been established by Universities Ireland,which operates on an all-island basis for all universities on the island of Ireland. It is expected to report on this issue of CAO reform, if we call it that, by the end of 2023. The membership of the working group comprises senior representatives from institutions North and South. I thank them for that. It is chaired by the excellent Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh, deputy president and registrar of University College Galway, who, coincidentally, was chair of the CAO for several years. I have indicated to the group that my officials are available to support it in its work.
The most recent analysis shows that 1,660 Northern Ireland domiciled students are in higher education institutions in this jurisdiction. There are 2,305 students from this jurisdiction studying in Northern Ireland. As the Senator noted, we have tried to show real commitment in respect of education on an all-island basis. We have put in place for the first time ring-fenced places in Northern Ireland for students from the Republic in key healthcare and therapy areas. For example, 200 places in nursing have been made available in universities in Derry and Belfast for students from this jurisdiction, while 50 have been made available in therapy disciplines in Ulster University, with 20 of them in occupational therapy and ten in speech and language. That is an achievement of which we are extremely proud, and we wish to build on it.
I have written to all institutions in Ireland, asking them to explore the possibility of ring-fencing places for students from Northern Ireland. If universities in the North are ring-fencing places for students from this jurisdiction, should we consider doing likewise? I am very open to that. It is a matter for the institutions but I am open to providing financial assistance if required.
The Senator referred to the work we have done in respect of the Erasmus programme. We are now funding research on an all-island basis through the shared island unit. I am happy to meet the secondary school union from Northern Ireland with the Senator. That could be useful. I see this as an education issue but also as a peace and prosperity issue on which we need to make progress.
I thank the Minister. It is music to my ears that he is taking this on board in a practical way. It is a problem that requires a practical solution. One does not have to manufacture co-operation if there is a system of integration. The structural disadvantage Northern Ireland students are facing is unfair. If we believe in a shared island, we must address this key issue. We do not want to be talking about a shared island but for people coming through the education system to face these hurdles just go to university on the island. I am always struck by the difference and disconnect between North and South. We can talk all we want about that, what we are going to do and our ambitions for the future but if we cannot address the education system in this way, it is all talk.
That is why the Senator and I are determined to ensure it is not all talk. This year, we have seen the all-island apprenticeships and the ring-fenced places in nursing and therapy. From next year, we will see an all-island approach to medicine. As the Senator stated, the Atlantic Technological University, working with Magee and the bigger campus in Derry, which the Government is part-funding to the tune of tens of millions of euro, makes a difference. As regards all-island research projects, I was with the Cancer Institute recently, which is now working on an all-island basis on cancer and better treatments for patients. Real and practical things are happening. The Senator is correct, however, that the current system for admissions to universities is disadvantaging all we wish to achieve in terms of Northern Ireland students, the A levels and the system here simply not understanding that system. That needs to be fixed. Frankly, I do not care how it is fixed. I have an open mind on the subject. The universities are independent but I and my Department wish to be a force for good in fixing it. If that requires providing funding for ring-fenced places, growing the number of places or doing whatever needs to be done, we are willing to do it.
The next practical step and date in the diary is for the Universities Ireland working group to conclude its work this year. I am happy to then meet with the group and support any outcome of its work. I would very much welcome a chance to meet those young secondary school students with the Senator, hear of the practical issues they are encountering and see how we can address those issues and give the students hope that the future will be better.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 11.15 a.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 11.30 a.m.
Sitting suspended at 11.15 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.