Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will conclude. I ask the Chairman and the clerk that it become a key recommendation of our body of work that the Road Safety Authority and the Department of Transport would have a specific category, for this year only, to cater for those who hope to undertake paramedic training. They are going to be caught out. If a solution is not put in place as an interim measure, they will not be able to take up the course offering in August, which means that the course at the University of Limerick may not even happen. If it does happen, it will mean that most Irish students of leaving certificate age will not be able to partake in it, so there will be a very small cohort, perhaps coming from Northern Ireland or the UK. We will see the knock-on effect of this in four years' time when, for a particular intake year, there will be a shortage of paramedics. That would only come to have an impact on the overall system in four years' time so, please God, they will graduate.