Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 January 2024
1829. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his plans to increase the number of places in third-level courses in planning in line with 55 of the Final Report by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Autism. [57104/23]
View answerIreland has an advanced system of skills provision, which is agile and responsive to skills shortages as they emerge to address evolving societal and economic needs. Through its work in apprenticeship, construction and green skills and informed by research commissioned, this Department is cognisant of the challenges presented with regard to qualified planner availability. These include issues associated with attracting and retaining planners in the profession and the related issue of student demand for places on planning-related courses. The Public Service Apprenticeship Plan, launched in August 2023, recognises the skills need for planning officials in the public service. Since then, a number of interested organisations, including DHLGH, the Office of the Planning Regulator, and the Office of Public Works have approached DFHERIS for guidance and support for their ambitions to leverage the apprenticeship model to address this shortage as well as to enhance accessibility for a more diverse cohort of candidates to the planning profession. As employees, apprentices are paid for the duration of their training, and it is typical that they are offered continued employment by their employer upon completion of the programme. This is a clear advantage of this qualification route and it would broaden the profession as an option for those who may experience access barriers to reskilling or upskilling in higher education. An apprenticeship programme typically takes 2-years to develop and launch. As such, the work to develop a new programme in planning would be targeting a Q4 2025 first-intake at its earliest. The Department remains available to facilitate the consortia with accessing available supports and provide appropriate advice to enable this work.In higher education, the Department provides targeted funding via the National Training Fund, to support upskilling and reskilling in areas of critical skills need to the economy. Through the Human Capital Initiative Pillar 1 and Springboard+ initiatives, courses in Marine Spatial Planning and Corporate Environmental Planning are being offered in 2023/24 with 16 places being made available on each course. With regard to the potential development of other new programmes to support the pipeline of planning professionals and with specialist knowledge of neurodiversity issues and urban design, it is important to note that higher education institutions are autonomous within the meaning of the Universities Act 1997, the Institutes of Technology Acts 1992 to 2006 and the Technological Universities Act 2018. Under this legislation the institutions are academically independent and are entitled to regulate their own academic affairs including admissions, programmes of study and awarding degrees and other qualifications. Higher education institutions receive funding from a variety of sources which contribute to the expenditure associated with the full range of institutional activities. Funding includes recurrent funding allocated by this Department to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) for direct disbursement to HEA funded higher education institutions, allocated as a block grant. As autonomous bodies, the internal disbursement of funding , including how much is allocated to individual areas including Planning-related education, is the responsibility of each individual institution. My Department remains open to engaging with relevant stakeholders on the above matters.
