Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 February 2022
499. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if his attention has been drawn to whether there was an oversubscription to speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and clinical psychology courses through the CAO scheme in 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5917/22]
View answerThe Central Applications Office (CAO) is a not-for-profit company created by the Irish higher education institutions, who have delegated to the CAO the task of centrally processing Irish and EU applications for their undergraduate, and some postgraduate, courses. The higher education institutions retain decision-making powers in relation to admissions, and instruct the CAO to make offers to successful candidates. Neither I nor my Department have a role in the operation of the CAO, and information on applications is held by the CAO and the higher education institutions.
While the CAO publishes a certain amount of data each year on applications, it is not published at course level and therefore data specifically on occupational and speech and language courses is not available. However given the the capacity limits on these courses, and the high CAO points required for entry, it is very likely that there were more applications to these courses than places available.
Clinical psychology is a psychology specialisation requiring completion of a doctorate. As such, clinical psychology places are not offered through the CAO.
My Department is strongly committed to ensuring that our higher education system is producing skilled graduates equipped with the necessary skills to be effective in the health workforce. My officials are actively engaging with the Department of Health to determine the types of healthcare graduates that are needed, with the aim of supporting long-term strategic workforce planning by the health sector
