Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with that. The Government, in the previous budget, funded 4,000 additional college places this year compared with the current year. Every year, we grow quite substantially the number of college places. In fairness to Government, the Minister, Deputy McGrath, and others who provided funding in this regard, as a result of the pandemic, we have significantly grown the size of the higher education sector. That is only good in terms of long-term educational benefit.

I set up a little group in my Department which will report back to me at the start of May in terms of what more we can do.

I am not going to put a precise figure on it now but I believe we can provide further additional places in the low thousands. I am due to bring a memorandum to Government on that in May. The metric that-----