Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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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.

Emer Currie (Fine Gael)
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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.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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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.

Emer Currie (Fine Gael)
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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.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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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.