Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 May 2022
95. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the steps he has taken to ensure that adequate places on in-demand courses, particularly where there is a corresponding skill shortage, have been made available in order to take pressure off the CAO system and reduce the need to use random selection to allocate places; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25388/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy first question today is to ask the Minister what steps he has taken to ensure adequate places for in-demand courses, particularly where there is a corresponding skills shortage, have been made available to take the pressure off the CAO system and reduce the need to use random selection to allocate places. It is disappointing to see reports that the CAO system will again use a lottery to allocate places for in-demand courses. It is unfair on students, who are already dealing with a huge amount of pressure.
As is Deputy Conway-Walsh, I am keenly aware of the pressure felt by students applying to enter higher education. I assure her and the House that I am taking action to relieve these pressures.
I requested quite some time ago that my officials would engage with the higher education sector on the creation of additional places in, as the Deputy rightly says, key areas as identified by our skills architecture and, as she also said, in in-demand areas. These engagements are at a very advanced stage. I can inform her that we hope to create places in areas of acute skills need such as healthcare, construction and green skills. However it is important to create these places in a sustainable way, cognisant of the expanded facilities, lecturing expertise and clinical and other placements needed, and to do so in areas that open up continuing career opportunities for learners.
In looking to increase capacity in tertiary education it is vital that we take a whole-of-system approach which covers further education and apprenticeships as well as higher education programmes. I have heard legitimate commentary on this in recent months. We must support a balanced further and higher education system that has a multitude of pathways for learners to follow.
I assure the Deputy there will be additional places in the in-demand areas. We are trying to take a more targeted approach this year than in previous years. I expect to be in a position very shortly to update the Government on the outcome of the engagements with higher education institutions. I should also flag, as I have referenced, that a number of these in-demand areas require clinical placements. As the Deputy can imagine, there has been a lot of engagement between my Department and other relevant Departments and agencies, for example, the Department of Health and the HSE with regard to medicine places. I am pleased to report very good progress on this. In the coming weeks we will be in a position to provide the detail on the number of additional places and where they will be.
Time is of the essence. How many of the extra places allocated in the past two years were taken up? How many of them led to students taking up those places? What is needed now is for students to know that everything is being done to help them to progress their education and careers. The Department of Education needs to get a handle on the grade inflation. We also need to expand in-demand courses, particularly in the areas the Minister has outlined where there are skills shortages.
I welcome the fact the long-awaited economic evaluation of further funding options for higher education contained the clear recognition that inadequate core funding has caused colleges to increase the provision of subjects that are cheaper to deliver at the expense of the more expensive subjects, particularly in health and social care. This has been an open secret in the sector. Deputy Harris, as a former Minister for Health and now Minister with responsibility for further and higher education, has to bear a lot of responsibility for these shortages in staffing and third level places.
I would be delighted to come here and debate my record in the Department of Health but we probably do not have time in the 58 seconds available to me other than to say the number of people working in the health service grew every year I was Minister for Health.
I agree with the Deputy that time is of the essence in terms of providing clarity on the additional numbers. We are honing in on finalising it. I expect the additional number of places to be somewhere in the region of 800 to 1,000. This is subject to finalisation but it is my expectation. What I am trying to do, and I think it is something on which we agree, is to target them to in-demand areas and areas where there are skills needs. I will outline to the House the three areas that are very prominent. They are healthcare, construction and climate and green skills. We speak a lot about construction in the context of apprenticeships and rightly so but of course construction will also need more architects and engineers and people who will go through the higher education system.
I do not have to hand the information the Deputy is looking for on the number of places taken up last year but I will provide it in writing to her.
Earlier this week the Irish Pharmacy Union, IPU, warned that a growing shortage of pharmacists is fast becoming a major threat to community healthcare. It now takes an average of five months to fill a vacant position in pharmacies. It called on the Government to increase the number of third level places. It referred to the chronic lack of university places. It is the same with regard to medicine places as we have said. We have seen staff shortages in the HSE and a crisis with GPs, particularly in rural areas. Any increase in medicine has been excruciatingly slow. Again this morning we saw a backlog in Mayo University Hospital. Staff are run off their feet. We see with doctors and out-of-hours services that the pressure is immense, particularly in rural communities. This could be rectified immediately by purchasing places that would otherwise be allocated to high fee-paying international students. Half of all of the places allocated are to fee-paying international students. It is very healthy to have a mix of international students but they are more likely to be mobile and to return home. We need to educate a workforce who will stay here and service all of these rural areas and hospitals such as Mayo University Hospital.
There are two parts to workforce planning. One is whether we are training enough people in any profession. The second is that if we are training enough people whether they choose to stay working in that area or to stay working in Ireland. The role of the Department is to work with line Departments to identify the number of places they believe are required to adequately meet workforce needs. Places are only part of it. I am very clear that we need to train more doctors in this country. It is utterly wrong that people who get the most points possible in the leaving certificate cannot get a place in medicine. We agree on this. I also know that we train quite a lot of doctors in Ireland relative to other countries. It is not just about training. It is also about retention and contracts. It has to do with places and what we do to keep people in the workforce. There is an open invitation to every Department and State agency to engage with my Department on their workforce needs. If the Department of Health or the HSE is of the view that there is a requirement to increase the number of pharmacy places we are ready to speak to them and work with them on it.
