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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 7 Jul 2022

Vol. 1025 No. 2

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

Question No. 6 replied to with Written Answers.

Disability Services

Michael Moynihan

Ceist:

7. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will detail progress on supporting more students with disabilities to access further and higher education, including the status of the new national plan for equity of access to higher education; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36753/22]

I thank the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, for attending. Can the Minister detail progress on supporting students with disabilities to access further and higher education? Can he also provide an update on the new national plan for equity of access to higher education?

I thank the Deputy for his question. I welcome his appointment to the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. We are looking forward to working with him on that committee.

Inclusion is one of the core strategic goals for our Department. Our ambition is to ensure that we provide support and opportunities to persons with special and additional needs. On the higher education side, I am pleased to say that the target set in the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2019 in the context of increasing participation in higher education for people with disabilities was not only met but was exceeded. Specific targets to increase participation in higher education by students with a physical or sensory disability were also met. In fact, they actually revised the targets and increased the level of ambition. I also want to be honest because I sometimes think that when targets are met, I am little bit suspicious because they can sometimes be set too low. If one sets targets, exceeds them and then exceeds the new targets, one wonders if those targets are ambitious enough.

I am very proud of the work that our sector and our country have done in respect of inclusion, but I also know that when one looks behind the headline figures, there are certain areas that were not being measured. We were not measuring, for example, participation of students with intellectual disabilities. The plan was silent in respect of autism. These are two areas we have moved on in the past couple of weeks together, as the Deputy will know, and we have announced a new funding stream. In the first instance, €3 million has been allocated to all the colleges to develop universal designs and initiatives that support autistic students. This could be through sensory rooms, wayfinding apps or new ways of teaching.

In the second and very exciting initiative, which will kick off in 12 months' time, we have now had a call-out to all of the universities to ask them to design and come up with programmes for people with intellectual disabilities. As a Government, we have committed €3 million a year for the next four years to the programme. That will give us more projects like the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities, which has been a roaring success, but also to have more projects around the country.

The national access plan is almost finalised. I signed off on it just yesterday. I will be bringing it to Cabinet probably at the end of this month and will publish it in August. We will be looking at a number of new areas, at people who have had experience in the care system, at more supports for people parenting singly or on their own, and we will not just be measuring access but will be measuring outcomes. That is, not just that you get in the door, but what actually happened when you got in the door and how did you succeed.

I thank the Minister. That is a positive reply. It is good to hear that the targets are being met and are being exceeded. I agree with him that the outcomes are completely crucial to this. I know of a cohort of students who recently completed a programme in the new Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest.

It has been absolutely fantastic. An element of equity in accessing education is the hardship fund provided at third level. Officially it is known as the student assistance fund. In the past academic year €18.5 million was allocated to it. There is no commonality in how it is disbursed, how people apply for it and when they apply. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul contacted me because its education officer is unable to properly advise people going into the scheme how to avail of it. There seems to be a lack of commonality. I have tried to elicit that information through parliamentary questions but it would be very useful if the Department could detail in tabular format for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul how so much public money can be properly disbursed and how it can advise people going into third level education how to avail of it.

I would be delighted to do so. I would be very happy to meet with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. If it is outlining the issue to the Deputy then it is definitely an issue I want to hear about and see how we can rectify it. Understandably there is a degree of flexibility and discretion around the student assistance programme because there has to be. This is not an excuse for a lack of information or support we can provide the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The idea is that there is discretion and flexibility to help students on a one-off basis with exceptional needs payments and the like. It is disbursed to universities and higher education institutions on a pro rata basis. They are each given a budget for the year. This year it is the highest amount it has ever been, as far as I can recall, at €18.5 million. Certainly I will do that. I have long been of the view that we need to make the information easier to get for students. The Deputy has triggered a thought in my mind. I would be very happy to meet him and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to see how we can assist. The other fund we have available is the fund for students with disabilities. We had 15,145 students access it in the academic year 2020-21. It is another funding stream available for people with disabilities in our education system.

I thank the Minister. That is positive. At a recent meeting the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science discussed prisoners, another group of people who sometimes enter further and higher education through a different pathway. I made the point that in the United States surveys by Ohio University have identified that up to 40% of inmates accessing higher education through the prison service have learning difficulties. We have no empirical evidence in this regard in Ireland. Higher education educators going into prisons can see this. We can very quickly see when an individual struggles with dyscalculia or dyslexia. It is wrong. There are certain interventions that a teacher is skilled to make but there is no diagnostic capacity. There is no capacity to wrap this up or quantify what it is and how to properly deal with it. It would be great if the Minister's Department could do this. It is not in the realm of justice. I would say it is in the realm of further and higher education.

I want to raise several issues. With regard to accessibility for people with disabilities, it is crucial that SUSI is made available for part-time courses. Many people with disabilities, and people without disabilities, find they have to do part-time courses. This is why it is very important. Rather than having separate funds if we could provide access to SUSI it would be very good. With regard to the student assistance fund, will the Minister see whether it can be made available earlier this year? What many students and families say is that they need the money in September. Waiting until October, November and December can often restrict the choices of students and put them into hardship. They get off on the wrong footing or are in a situation where they have to take out loans. Making it available earlier would be a practical measure we could take.

Today is the deadline for SUSI applications. A small number of students, including students with disabilities, were trapped abroad because of Covid and cannot now meet the residency requirement of being here for three of the past five years. Has the Minister any intention or plan to assist these students? They cannot complete their applications online after they state they have not been here. The system does not allow them to go any further. It is a serious issue for a small number of students, including a number with disabilities.

I welcome that more funding has been made available for students with disabilities. As other speakers said, the timing is crucial. There also needs to be more information. People always seem to be looking for information and contacting us but we do not have it. We need more information, clarification and timescales. Will the Minister produce a leaflet or contact the colleges more to make sure all of the information is given? This is something I was asked about recently.

The short answer to Deputy Murnane O'Connor is "Yes", in that we do need to do more and to be better in providing information. I thank Deputy Stanton for contacting me and bringing this issue to my attention. It had not been brought to my attention previously. I immediately contacted my officials and I will engage with them again after question time. It would be very unfair if people, through no fault of their own, were caught abroad because of a global pandemic and the criterion was used against them. I am actively on this matter and I appreciate the time sensitivity. I will come back to the Deputy.

Deputy Conway-Walsh asked about part-time courses. She is right. It is not unusual for a student with a disability to be told or advised to do a four-year degree because they are well able for it but that it might work better for them it to do it over five or six years. We have asked Professor Tom Collins, one of the co-chairs of our new funding implementation group, to do specific work on part-time education, what it is and how we define it. It is an area I would like to move forward on. The Deputy's suggestion on part-time courses in respect of disability might be something to start on. With regard to the student assistance fund, we will try to make it available earlier.

Prisoner education is the responsibility of the Department and approximately €15 million a year is spent on it. If we can get it right it has the ability to be a circuit-breaker in terms of deprivation and people going in and out of prison. I visited Shelton Abbey recently and I will speak to Deputy Crowe about it. I will be very happy to come back to the Deputy on this. We are engaging with the Irish Prison Service to see how we can roll out more programmes and how we can have accreditation and make apprenticeships available.

If diagnostic testing could be started in the next year it would be great.

I take the point on learning difficulties and I will revert directly to the Deputy on it.

Disability Services

Pauline Tully

Ceist:

8. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will request that personal assistant, PA, hours in further and higher education be provided based on the needs of the disabled person rather than an allocation of one personal assistant per student; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36730/22]

Are personal assistants hours in further and higher education provided based on the needs of the disabled person or is there a rule in the Department that there is an allocation of one personal assistant per student?

Sometimes I am asked a question that makes me eager to ask questions in return because I am interested in this area. The Department wants to hear a little bit more from the Deputy on this. I will read what I have and we might engage a bit more on it.

The fund for students with disabilities provides funding to higher and further education institutions for the delivery of services and supports for students with disabilities. We know this. The fund is intended to assist in offering supports and services to eligible students with disabilities so that they can participate on an equal basis. This funding can be used to provide support and accommodation in a range of broad categories, including non-medical helpers, personal assistants and notetakers.

The disability support services in higher education institutions complete a needs assessment in respect of each student. On completion of the needs assessment, disability support staff in the institution determine the nature and level of supports, such as a non-medical assistant or a personal assistant, required by students. They can draw down from the fund for students with disabilities to provide these supports. In further education, needs assessments determine the supports and accommodations requested for students and the individual education and training board or further education college is responsible for decisions on the most appropriate support to provide to the student.

I checked this out when I saw the question. We are not aware of the issue mentioned by the Deputy. I am sure she has more information. Perhaps it has been raised by a particular institution with her. If she is happy to share information with me now or afterwards in more detail we will certainly examine the matter. I want to be very clear that the entire policy rationale of the funding is that it is on a needs-based approach. The ultimate answer to the Deputy's question is that it should not have a rigid application whereby it must be this or that. It is about a needs-based assessment for each student and the institution then draws down from the fund. I am not aware of any such rigidity and if the Deputy has come across it I would be very happy to work with her on it.

I thank the Minister. The case I am asking about is that of a young man with quite a complex disability who has identified a course he is interested in doing. The college has been very accommodating in meeting him and making sure it is accessible. The Minister has mentioned part-time courses and I believe he will be allowed to take longer to do the course. This is something that should be considered with regard to disabled people and people who suffer from chronic pain. It is something that has been raised with me. The person in this case is being allocated a personal assistant but when it comes to toileting he requires two people. This seems to be where the problem arises. Apparently the college has been told it is not allowed to allocate a second person. This is the information that is coming from him. I can seek further information or I can ask whether I can pass on his details to the Minister to look at the matter. It is coming to the stage where he is asking whether he will take up the course. Without the assistance of two people when using the bathroom he will not be able to attend and participate in the course. The college is building an accessible toilet for him.

Many of the disabled bathrooms in our public buildings are not large enough for the bigger motorised wheelchairs.

I would be very interested in following up on the issue with the Deputy. I will ask my officials listening in to the debate to expect to hear from the Deputy on the matter. My very clear understanding in checking this out is that the higher or further education institutions determine the level of support provided, but they do not do it in a vacuum. They do it based on the needs assessment. If there is a needs assessment for any student which states that there is a particular requirement, the relevant institution should be in a position to draw down from the fund to provide the support required. I am not blaming the college or the education and training board, ETB, in question. If there is an anomaly, we need to look at it. I am not familiar with the case. The Deputy is not being critical of anybody and I am not either. If there is an issue here, we should look at it. The fundamental principle is that the needs assessment sets out the student's requirements. The higher education institution outlines how it will meet the needs of the student and it then requests funding from the fund for students with disabilities. That is the process. If there is a rigidity in the system that I am not aware of or a clarification needs to be provided, I am happy to provide it. I ask the Deputy to liaise directly with my office. I will keep a personal interest in the matter.

I will get the permission of the student concerned and pass on the details of the case on to the Minister.

I wish to raise another issue. Sometimes the contracts concluded between colleges or further education institutions, the provider of the PA service, and perhaps the insurance company, stipulate that the students are precluded from leaving campus during contracted hours. That is quite restrictive. For example, if a student wants to go for a coffee with friends, they are told that they cannot leave campus during contracted hours. I have heard that from the head of an institution, who highlighted the issue to me. Perhaps that is something the Minister can look at. I am also aware that the HSE has very strict rules around PA hours for non-academic PAs. I know that the issue is not entirely within the Minister's remit. The non-academic PA hours are linked to the relevant student's home county when students often study outside their own home county. It is another issue that affects disabled students. For disabled students to be able to attend college, they need to have their PA for both non-academic and academic purposes.

The Deputy's question has been most useful in providing valuable insight through the information she has picked up. I will follow up on all three issues the Deputy has highlighted. On the specific matters raised in respect of insurance companies and the non-academic PA, I do not doubt what the Deputy said, because she has heard it from authoritative sources. However, it is very frustrating to hear that even though we have a needs-based, student-centred approach, a student cannot leave campus to go for a coffee with other students because of some insurance rules. I ask the Deputy to engage with me directly on the matter and I will take the three issues forward.

Student Accommodation

Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceist:

9. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the discussions that he has had with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage in relation to the student accommodation crisis that will hit in early September 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36668/22]

Last year, there was an absolutely dire student accommodation crisis, to the point where many students were paying up to €400 a week for hotel accommodation. Some could not even get that. What is going to be different this year? Student union leaders believe that we are going to face the same student accommodation crisis this year as last year. What has the Minister done, and what is he going to do to prevent that from happening?

The Government's Housing for All Plan contains a detailed and comprehensive series of actions to substantially increase supply of all types of housing and accommodation, including student accommodation. I think it is sometimes hard to decouple the issues that students face in relation to accommodation from the broader housing issues. That is why I have referenced Housing for All. The plan is backed by the largest housing budget in the history of the State. There is a €20 billion budget behind it. I have been engaging extensively with my Department on the issue, with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and his Department, as well as with the wider higher education sector, student representative groups and other stakeholders. In recent weeks I chaired a meeting of all higher education institutions and the Union of Students of Ireland, USI, to further pursue the issue. I have corresponded with all chairs and presidents of the new technological universities at least twice this year regarding the current issues with accommodation and how we can try to resolve them.

As I said to Deputy Conway-Walsh earlier, we are approaching the new academic year with two different realities. First, we are approaching the year with around 600 additional student accommodation beds. Second, I hope we are approaching the year in which we can begin to get the rent-a-room scheme back up and running, which fell off a cliff during the height of the Covid pandemic. They are the two most immediate avenues that we can pursue. In addition to the 600 beds I mentioned earlier, another 674 beds are due to become available during the academic year in NUI Galway. The bigger project that I am genuinely working intensively on is to try to put a new model in place to deliver student accommodation. I am saying openly and bluntly that I think it will require public and State subvention to bridge what seems to be the market failure challenge that universities and colleges are experiencing at the moment. There will have to be an affordability conversation in return for any subvention made by the State. However, there are many planning permissions in the pipeline for college-owned student accommodation that could be built if we can unleash the new model. I am engaging with the Cabinet subcommittee on housing on the matter next week.

The cheapest student accommodation at UCD is more than €8,000 for the college term. The new student accommodation that is going to be provided at UCD costs €14,000 a year. That is just insanity. It is not acceptable. To be honest, the Government should intervene immediately to ensure that students and their families are not being screwed with that level of rent. It is not that I am a fan of HAP but, as I said, a temporary stop-gap must be introduced. People should not be paying that level of rent. I would be in favour of nationalising all the privately- and investor-built student accommodation. The developers are getting tax breaks and they are charging €1,000 a month in rent, which most students cannot afford. Then there is the bigger issue of the need for major investment in providing student accommodation that is affordable on campus or near campus.

I think there are four actions we need to take. The first is that we need to take a flexible local approach. We have said several times that we want to hear from any higher education institution in any part of the country that has a local solution. If there is something that can be done on campus or near campus, or if the institution has a building that can be converted into student accommodation, we want to hear about it, and we will provide assistance in making that happen. There is an example of this approach being taken in Limerick, the constituency of the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, where the technological university there worked with the local authority to deliver a local solution. The second action we need to take, which I have discussed with students, is to get the rent-a-room scheme up and running again. If people have a spare room, they can earn up to €14,000 tax-free while renting out a room. That is a scheme that has traditionally worked well. I accept that the USI wants assurances around protection for students in what it refers to as digs. That is a valid issue. The third element is the borrowing framework. We have provided legal clarity that the new technological universities, which were previously institutes of technology, of which there is one in the Deputy's constituency, can borrow to build for the first time. The fourth is the new model that I am working on, which I believe will require an intervention from the State to unleash the potential to build many thousands of on-campus college-owned student accommodation units.

The problem is that rather than the Government making a decision that we have to have the necessary student accommodation to avoid a student accommodation crisis and to make it affordable, the onus is being put on the colleges to provide it. The result is that we are getting accommodation such as that being offered at UCD, which costs €14,000 a year. I made a general suggestion to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, but he did not take it up. The Seamark Building, a multistorey building located opposite the Merrion Gates, has been sitting empty for ten years. I suggest that the Government buys the building and refurbishes it for student accommodation. Nothing the Minister said really suggests to me that we are not going to face major problems again this year. Does the Minister agree with me that, although HAP is not an ideal scheme by any means compared to the direct provision of student accommodation or any form of accommodation, we should at least be bringing the rents down to affordable levels for student by providing subsidies such as HAP?

I think this question is the most important of the oral parliamentary questions today. On top of everything Deputy Boyd Barrett said, my worry is that there are many accommodation centres, particularly in the mid-west, that also have Ukrainian refugees staying in them now. The capacity that they would have had in the previous academic year is now virtually gone. I am glad to hear the Minister will entertain the idea of institutions finding on-campus solutions. However, I do not think enough is being done in that regard. I am thinking of the University of Limerick, in particular, which is close to me. I am not suggesting for a moment that people should be sleeping on camp beds in lecture halls. That is not what we are talking about. However, the university has the highest number of faculty buildings available in the mid-west on its campus. Surely, there are buildings that could be partitioned, or buildings in respect of which a change of use application could be submitted to the local authority, with the buildings subsequently being fitted out in order to provide student accommodation.

The Minister needs to write to all third level presidents on what can be done in an eight-week planning window.

I want to talk about Carlow-Kilkenny. As the Minister knows, we are all delighted Carlow is a university town and county but again there are going to be issues with accommodation. Carlow College, St. Patrick's, has 40 units of its own that I am aware the Minister is looking at integrating into the TU for the south east. The local authorities have a role to play in their development plan also to ensure we have enough housing and apartments and that people are not losing out because we do not have the spaces. I ask that all bodies work together to ensure there is enough accommodation, especially in new university towns like Carlow.

I wish to pick up on the point about the demand from Ukrainian students. I commend the accommodation providers supplying that accommodation and absolutely condemn the others who are using the opportunity to price-gouge and put up prices hugely. I am talking about around the country but Athlone especially. A clear message needs to go out from here that price-gouging in these circumstances will not be tolerated and that it is condemned across the House.

The Minister is in a position where he has one minute to reply.

They are supplemental questions, not grouped questions.

Perfect. I will give it my best shot. I agree with Deputy Conway-Walsh that all of us in the House should condemn anybody who attempts to price-gouge in the middle of a horrific illegal invasion and massive humanitarian crisis. I will talk to her in more detail about that.

Deputy Murnane O'Connor is right that as we develop the technological universities, and there is one in the south east in Carlow-Kilkenny, accommodation needs to come with that. That is why I am delighted we have clarity now on the borrowing framework that means the South East Technological University can apply to build student accommodation in a way it could not in the past. I am also conscious of Carlow College and the real possibility there is there for student accommodation on the site. I hope we make progress on that.

I agree with Deputy Cathal Crowe. I wrote to every university president on this in February. I wrote to them again, I think, in June. I chaired a meeting with them on 16 June. We have made it extremely clear here that we will do whatever it takes and Members need to keep coming forward with ideas and local solutions. I have had good conversations with UL in recent weeks.

Deputy Boyd Barrett's HAP idea certainly merits consideration and I am not going to rule it out. It is not a policy intervention within my direct Department but let me reflect on it and talk to relevant Ministers about that.

Apprenticeship Programmes

Richard Bruton

Ceist:

10. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the level of advertising of apprenticeship opportunities posted on the apprenticeship website; and the initiatives to get more sectoral organisations to get their members to advertise in this way. [36446/22]

I begin by commending all involved in getting us close to 80 apprenticeships either approved or in the pipeline. How many posts on apprenticeships are actually being advertised on the website? The real problem for people is finding a sponsor. Has the backing of associations been sought to up that number?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue but also for the work he did in his time in the Department of Education to promote apprenticeships. It has helped us get to this place. As he will be aware, apprenticeship is a demand-driven, employer-led system that aims to develop the skills of an apprentice in order to meet the needs of industry and the labour market. In light of that employer-led model of apprenticeship, the level of apprenticeship opportunities and associated advertising for those roles in any particular sector are obviously based on the current demand that exists in that sector for apprentices. A key deliverable under the Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025 is to increase this demand by addressing barriers to employer participation. In this context, I introduced an annual grant for employers who employ apprenticeships in one of the post-2016 apprenticeships, thereby extending financial support to all apprentice employers for the first time.

SOLAS has advised my Department that there are 66 open jobs currently advertised on the Generation Apprenticeship website. Nearly 1,000 jobs have been advertised since its launch in October 2020. A total of 2,881 employers have been set up on the apprenticeship jobs portal to date. There is a national campaign under way via the Generation Apprenticeship campaign to drive awareness of apprenticeship opportunities across a broad audience of stakeholders. I am pleased to say traffic on apprenticeship.ie has increased very significantly as a result of the changes we made to the CAO website. There have been over 30,000 click-throughs from the CAO website, which means more than 30,000 people went to the CAO site and then went directly to the apprenticeship website. Both campaigns promote a number of key initiatives under the Generation Apprenticeship banner. They are targeting the employer audience regarding the gender bursary and employer grant, as well as targeting students, parents and guidance counsellors regarding opportunities in apprenticeship.

Long story short, the Deputy is right. I am looking at how we can link some supports we provide to the public advertising of apprenticeships. There needs to be equity with people's ability to access information on this. We are also working very hard on public sector apprenticeships and we have a target of 750 public sector apprenticeships by 2025. That will increase the opportunity the Deputy refers to about the availability of apprenticeships in local areas.

When we have an all-time shortage of staff, to hear just 66 apprenticeship posts are being advertised on apprenticeship.ie is bizarre. We have scarcities in most of the sectors, including hospitality, finance, engineering, logistics, ICT and biopharma. All these sectors are crying out for new talent. All of them have representatives of significant weight. Why are those bodies not being leaned upon to recognise that the learn-as-you-earn model offers a way to attract young people into these sectors with huge growth opportunities? Huge work has been done and I fully acknowledge that but we need to get these partners going beyond approving apprenticeships to offering a pool of opportunities. It is not the same going to the site if there are only 66 posts. There are something like 30,000 places on the CAO site. The contrast speaks for itself.

I do not disagree with the Deputy on the need for a much better and bigger job to be done on the central and public advertising of apprenticeship opportunities. That is part of the cultural shift that needs to take place. We have set up a national apprenticeship alliance and its job is to look at all of these areas. Now we as a State are providing financial incentives to all apprentice employers in the country, it is not unreasonable that in return we ask for things in terms of how these are advertised. That is a route I intend to pursue. However, I would not like, and I know the Deputy would not either, for a small number of advertisements on a website to suggest a lack of progress because we obviously saw the highest number of new apprentices ever registered last year, namely, 8,607. We had set a target of getting to 10,000 by 2025 and I am quite encouraged we are going to beat that target and get there earlier. We now have 65 apprenticeship programmes with 16 more being developed. We have a new national apprenticeship office being established with the TUs rolling out access to apprenticeship programmes and we have the changes to the CAO. However, I agree with the Deputy and will revert to him on this.

I ask that the public sector lead by example here. Apart from the ESB, which has traditionally been a pioneer in this area, there are no public sector bodies that are really putting their shoulders to the wheel. If the first central pooling place for apprentices to apply to came from the public sector as a single effort to put up on apprenticeship.ie a range of opportunities, that would be a loud signal to others to follow suit.

Has the Minister's Department linked with the guidance counsellors in second level schools? Quite often they have links with universities, businesses and trades, as well as parents and students, to drive this on and publicise this whole apprenticeship area, which is quite exciting.

To respond to Deputy Stanton, yes I have. Indeed, some of the changes we have brought to the CAO website have been things the guidance counsellors have been campaigning for over a decade so they are very much driving this and I am eager to work very closely with them.

Deputy Bruton is entirely right. The public sector needs to step up here. To be really clear, it has not done so. A public sector that employs around 300,000 taking on around 200 apprentices per year is offensive. It is offensive to me, offensive to the Government and offensive to mums and dads right across this country. Every local authority, Government Department and State agency should be doing it. At the moment, we have a global figure of 750. We want 750 apprentices every year across the public sector by 2025. We are in the mapping exercise of that right now of going out to the local authority, asking where its skills needs are, where can it take on apprentices and how many. It is my intention to return to the Government in the autumn and map out how we get from here with in and around 200 per year to 750 per year. The local authorities will have a major part to play in that and yes, absolutely, that will be a big moment with a central depository, if you like, of public sector apprenticeships available to all our citizens. I will keep the Deputy informed on that.

Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence

Niamh Smyth

Ceist:

11. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if consideration has been given to rolling out a national bystander intervention programme around sexual and gender-based violence; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36756/22]

Has any consideration been given to the roll-out of a national bystander intervention programme around sexual and gender-based violence and will the Minister make a statement on the matter?

I thank the Deputy for raising this extremely important matter. Bystander training can be a crucial intervention to help educate people about sexual and domestic violence prevention. This type of training programme can highlight the danger of normalising abusive behaviour. It cultivates an understanding of people's capacity to intervene and it can provide learners with a safe environment to better understand appropriate social interactions. It also helps to identify unacceptable behaviour, ensuring an understanding of the importance and meaning of consent but also, more broadly, personal assertiveness and social responsibility.

University College Cork, UCC, launched its online bystander intervention in January 2019 and I commend and thank Professor Louise Crowley in the UCC school of law for her leadership on this initiative. The UCC programme seeks to educate and empower students to support the development of a visible institutional culture which stands against unacceptable behaviour and abuse. It also seeks to foster a culture of positivity and support.

In 2019, the Higher Education Authority awarded €350,000 in performance funding in recognition of the impact of the programme. The Higher Education Authority's centre of excellence for equality, diversity and inclusion has since been working with the UCC bystander programme to facilitate, as the Deputy suggested, the national roll-out of this programme. National reporting on the framework for consent in November of last year showed that a majority of our higher education institutions have now engaged with the UCC bystander programme and are either offering or intending to offer the training. There has been good progress in that regard, I am pleased to say. The Higher Education Authority has this year allocated €20,000 to support the roll-out of a pilot of the online version of the UCC bystander programme in all higher education institutions. It can be accessed immediately once invitations are issued by UCC to participating staff and students.

In another very welcome development, the bystander programme has now advised that it is responding to growing interest from second level schools. This is important because third level can be too late and it would be better if some of this happened in second level, if not earlier. The bystander programme has now developed a pilot intervention training programme at second level. That has initially been rolled out in seven schools and training has been provided to 140 teachers. It is now being rolled out in 45 schools and I thank Professor Crowley for that.

We intend to roll out the programme nationally. We are nearly there, quite frankly. Almost all our higher education institutions are now saying they are on board and schools are also getting in on the act.

That is very welcome. As the Minister is aware, Carlow is now a university town and county. I welcome the culture of zero tolerance of all forms of sexual hostility, harassment and violence by society to actively contribute to a safe, supportive environment. This is especially important for higher and further educational institutions. I welcome the extension of the programme to the second level, which is good for secondary schools. That is important. The development of a national toolkit to educate and support safe bystander intervention will promote pro-social behaviour and attitudes. It is important that we can ensure across all sectors that we include everyone. It is great to see that happening.

There are good examples of such initiatives. The Minister mentioned the UCC bystander intervention programme. In the United States, there is what is called the green dot bystander intervention. Is the Minister aware of that? He is not. That is another approach that is in use and seems to be very good. What the Minister said is welcome and I thank him.

I thank the Deputy. I will certainly familiarise myself with that American example. Much progress has been made by the higher education sector in recent years, as, quite frankly, it had to be made. We need to take these programmes out from behind the walls of the universities and make them more widely available across society. Professor Crowley has led in that regard. There has also been the good example of the active consent programme in NUI Galway under Pádraig MacNeela. We now have an online hub regarding consent. Any student, parent or teacher can access different information appropriate to them around the whole issue of consent. My colleague, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, is overseeing a new strategy, the third national strategy on gender-based and domestic violence, and the zero-tolerance approach. These actions will feed in as a core part of achieving the societal change we need to achieve.

I thank the Minister. I welcome the online hub and the intervention programme about which he has spoken. Is there a timeframe involved? Have all the colleges and schools been contacted? It is important for that information to be out there. It is good news that the Government is being so proactive on this issue. We are going to do everything we can to ensure we give all the information and that we have a programme in place for all colleges and schools.

The colleges and schools have been contacted. The first letter I wrote to university presidents when I took up this role was not about the important issue of future funding and the like but was about the whole issue of sexual harassment and consent. We wrote to every university president and requested that they put in place a plan for their institutions. We asked how each of the presidents would adopt a zero-tolerance approach and what they would do to tackle sexual harassment. I was not asking them to hide beyond national frameworks, important as national frameworks are. I wanted each of the presidents to reflect on how the national framework could be applied to their institutions. I am pleased to say that every single one of them now has a plan and each of those plans has been published. The institutions are now having to report against those plans to the Higher Education Authority on an annual basis. That has been a big shift.

The online consent hub is now up and running. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and I launched it in January 2022. I praise the active consent project team at NUI Galway for its work. The online consent hub provides for the first time in our country a publicly available educational resource on sexual consent for young people, their families and educators. It is the first national online resource we have had around consent. Incredible work has been done in NUI Galway to deliver that.

Apprenticeship Programmes

David Stanton

Ceist:

12. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will list the uptake of apprenticeships by trade, sector and by county for each of the years from 2020 to 2022, to date, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36681/22]

This question relates to apprenticeships. I am curious to know the uptake of apprenticeships by trade, sector and county in recent years. What are the projections for now on?

I thank the Deputy. A key objective of the action plan for apprenticeships for 2021 to 2025 is to ensure that the apprenticeship system will increase its contribution to meeting Ireland's skills and human capital requirements by delivering on a target of 10,000 apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025. At the end of June, there had been 3,057 apprentice registrations, made up of 2,667 craft and 390 consortia-led registrations.

In 2021, a record 8,607 new apprentices were registered in the apprenticeship system. This was an increase of nearly 40% compared to 2019, which was the last normal year of operations prior to the pandemic. There were a total of 5,326 registrations in 2020, with registrations severely impacted by the pandemic and the shutdown of education and training facilities.

The bulk of apprenticeship take-up for craft apprentices in recent years has been focused on the construction sector, with electrical, plumbing, carpentry and joinery being the most popular craft programmes in terms of registrations.

So far this year, the software developer associate and accounting technician programmes have seen the highest registrations for consortia-led apprenticeships. The bar manager apprenticeship, officially launched in May this year, has also seen very strong engagement with 38 apprentices registered. This level of take-up is particularly welcome given skills shortages in hospitality.

SOLAS has advised that apprentice registrations are recorded by the employer in each ETB region rather than on a county basis. Last year, the highest number of apprentice registrations were to Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ETB, Cork ETB and Louth-Meath ETB. A full table of the registration figures by programme and by ETB region for the period 2020 to 2022 to date is being prepared and will be sent separately to the Deputy as soon as possible.

I thank the Minister of State and the Minister for the work they and their Department are doing in this area. How many recognised trades and professions at present have apprenticeships? The figure in Germany is almost 350. How many are there here? If the Minister of State does not have that information, he might get it to me.

Will the Minister of State also comment on the role of the technological universities and their importance in this area? Will he tell me how he is ensuring they will not morph into normal universities? Is there a risk that might happen? It is important to maintain a separation and retain the identity of technological universities, especially where apprentices are concerned.

I thank the Deputy. There are currently 65 apprenticeship programmes on offer, 25 of which are craft programmes. Some 40 programmes have been introduced since 2016 and eight new programmes were launched over the period of 2020 to 2021, despite the pandemic. Those programmes relate to arboriculture, equipment systems engineering, healthcare assistance, principal engineering, professional doctorates, recruitment sales executives, scaffolding and supply chain associates.

The bar manager apprenticeship was launched earlier this year, as well as the wind turbine maintenance apprenticeship. Most recently, an apprenticeship in transport operations and commercial driving was also launched.

On the Deputy’s query on the technological universities, they will be absolutely integral to the continuing work of expanding and rolling out our apprenticeship programmes and training apprentices. Even though they have now gained technological university status, much of the ethos that they gained from their former iterations as regional technical colleges will absolutely exist into the future to ensure the credibility of our apprenticeship programmes.

I am very pleased to hear that because I feel there that is a risk they may actually morph into academia again, which would be a shame. Also, the Minister of State told me there are 65 programmes here and there are 342 in Germany. I acknowledge they are different systems and so forth but we probably have a long way to go and there is much potential.

I ask the Minister of State to comment on something I have been talking about for quite a bit, which is the local training initiatives as a pathway to apprenticeships. Would he agree with me that we need to look at the people working there and put in place a proper career structure? The turnover of staff is enormous due to lack of certainty into the future regarding employability, security and so on.

I wish to raise the issue of workforce planning and how we are obviously lacking in certain skill sets. What is the input from the regional skills framework and from departmental heads in relation to filling those spaces? If we are talking about add-on courses for retrofitting and whatever, could we look at apprenticeships from a point of view of fitting them into the actual base apprenticeship, be that in some of the regular skill sets of plumbing, electrical work or whatever else?

I do not think we can talk about apprentices without talking about the current state of apprenticeships and what those who are in the system at the moment are experiencing. In our recent survey results, 84% of apprentices told us that they had to cut down on essentials such as buying groceries or turning the heat on. Some 72% said they had to take out debts in starting the apprenticeship. Some 96% felt that the Government was not doing enough to help them around the cost-of-living crisis. What plans are in place to look at the immediate cost-of-living crisis and the impact on apprentices to ensure that they stay within the system? It is fine that they are going into apprenticeships but we need them to stay there and thrive within them.

Deputy Stanton raised the local training initiatives previously and the points that he raised are quite valid. That is something that we flagged to the national apprenticeship office and its new director in terms of the work she is doing. I am confident that the issues the Deputy is flagging is an area she is looking at.

On the manpower planning and regional skills, we have, as the Deputy will know, a network of regional skills managers. We have nine regional skills managers around the country who are linked in to employers and industry in their functional areas. It as a very important aspect in terms of informing us, SOLAS, the ETBs and the Department on policy direction. Similarly, I think the Deputy mentioned this in his question on upskilling, in terms of the existing people who are involved and are qualified and working in, for example, the construction areas, our network of nearly zero energy buildings, NZEB, centres is out there. They are being rolled out. They are short courses to upskill people who are already qualified and in the workplace.

I hope the Minister of State can take on board some of the things I said.

Third Level Education

Cathal Crowe

Ceist:

13. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if there are plans to increase the availability of third level courses for the study of educational psychology. [36581/22]

I wish to ask the Minister, Deputy Harris, if he has intentions to expand the availability of places in third level courses that provide training in the realm of educational psychology.

I thank the Deputy for the question. My Department, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and I are strongly committed to supporting the well-being of the population through the provision of graduates with the key competencies and skills to be effective in health and education workforces and to support a range of public services, including educational psychology.

While colleges are absolutely free to provide whatever courses they want, it is right and proper that when it comes to the public service provision, we have a very active interest in how we workforce-plan. We do many things well in this country. However, one thing we do not do particularly well is to engage in workforce planning properly in terms of public services, which goes back many years. This is something we need to fix.

In this context, my Department in its still relative newness is now engaging with other line Departments on their workforce needs. We are engaging on an ongoing basis with the Departments of Health and Education and other relevant Departments, including the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, with regard to how the further and higher education system can best support workforce planning for the delivery of essential public services.

The national health and social care professions office in the HSE has advised my Department that the psychology project team completed a report in 2021 which recommended the development of a workforce plan for psychology, including educational psychology. My Department understands that implementation of the recommendations is now being examined by the HSE. My Department is also engaging with the Department of Education on its workforce needs, including for the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS.

Progress on workforce planning in this area by the Departments of Health and Education will inform the funding for future reform process for higher education, a key focus of which, in collaboration with professional regulators, is on ensuring that appropriate pipeline of suitably qualified individuals to enable the delivery of essential public services. A good example of workforce planning is the work that the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and I did this year in relation to medicine places. We sat down as two Departments with the HSE, others and the deans of medical schools and identified the need. We now have seen a very large increase. We want to replicate that process across health, social care and education. I have written to all Cabinet colleagues on this. Educational psychology is certainly an area I will pursue.

The housing crisis can only be fixed by building houses, the hospital crisis can only be truly fixed by more hospital beds and, indeed, the incessant problems we are having with children waiting for diagnostic tests and psychological screening can only be rectified when NEPS and the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, have an adequate capacity of educational psychologists.

It just struck me many times over. When I was at Mary Immaculate College, there was a course, a bachelor of education in education and psychology, MI008, with an intake of 33 students per annum. Their career progression is not clear. A small cohort goes into educational psychology and most go into primary school teaching. They have qualifications in educational psychology, but they teach maths, English and Irish all day long. They never get into the realm of screening and diagnostics. I acknowledge there will be a top-up required in order to do that. One cannot just become clinical the minute one graduates from college and diagnose children. However, surely that in-house capacity needs to be looked at, rather than referring the children off onto a NEPS list, where they might not get an appointment for 18 months. Surely, the in-house capacity, namely, the teacher down the corridor who has this qualification, needs to be activated. However, that can only happen if there is an adequate intake.

Absolutely. The role of our Department is to provide, working with our sector, the capacity and pathways for graduates, as well courses and upskilling and reskilling across a range of public services. When the HSE and the Department of Health complete their work on their psychology review with the Department of Education, we stand ready to do more on this.

The Deputy is entirely right. I saw this during my time in health and I see it now in this Department. There are many times where it is not just funding that is constrained, it is actually the availability of a skilled professional to carry out a job within the public service. To share the most recent data I have available with the Deputy, which are for the year 2020-21, at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, the Deputy’s alma mater, there were 168 people registered on educational psychology courses. Forty-one were on the bachelor of education in educational psychology, 19 on the doctorate in educational and child psychology and 108 on education and psychology courses. There were also 41 people engaged in educational psychology courses in UCD. I will share the data with the Deputy.

I thank the Minister for his reply. There are two parts to this problem. The first is that we are not churning out quite enough graduates. However, more importantly, those graduates who emerge from these courses are not going into educational psychology. Rather, they are back down in classrooms. It makes no sense for someone with an educational psychology qualification to be filling out a referral form for somebody to NEPS, which will not see them for a year or two. That is absolutely illogical. There needs to be a new pay grade in teaching and a new incremental point in order that somebody exiting the college system with this qualification is actually put to practice. The children could bypass NEPS and CAMHS and go down the corridor to Ms Ryan, because she is qualified in this area. In a week's time, a diagnostic report could be prepared by a teacher who knows and understands the child and sees that child playing in the yard.

We need to get that competency in-house. That submission has been made by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO, for budget 2023. Let us activate it. We need to consider the teachers down the corridor who have this skill set, and activate them. We need to get more graduates. We can solve this in-house. It is not a massive thing. This will not take four years of graduates exiting. It will require the activation of those within schools who have the necessary skill set.

I thank the Deputy for his well made and passionate points. The points made by the INTO are valid. I will convey the Deputy's views on the matter to the Minister, Deputy Foley. I am sure he has already done so. My Department stands ready to work with the Departments of Education and Health to increase the graduate supply. The other matters are for the Department of Education but I will speak to the Minister on them.

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