Mr. Gerry O'Sullivan:

I thank the Chair. Perhaps my colleagues, Mr. Conlon and Dr. Marron, might have further points to add.

Senator Byrne asked about attracting students to Ireland. We do quite well in that regard currently. Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit us, 4,000 students were outbound and we were attracting in 8,000 students from the rest of the Europe. Like the UK, we are significantly oversubscribed because of a number of features. The English language is one of them and the attraction of our educational system is another. The students also like the country and have a very good experience. The reputation has been established by the thousands of students who have come to Ireland. More than 120,000 students have come to Ireland over the past 30 years and they have sent many more students in this direction.

The most obvious answer to the Senator's question from my point of view, in terms of attracting more students and making more space for them, is for more Irish students to go abroad and free up the space. As others have mentioned already, we are continuing to see high domestic demand for places in higher education, which is going to last for at least another decade. Physically accommodating more students in our system is not immediately possible unless we increase the numbers of outbound students. The removal of the UK obviously represents a challenge that is not going to get easier for us.

The Turing scheme is a system that will enable UK students to travel to any part of the world. It will not enable Irish students to go to the UK. At the present, there are some limited opportunities within the Erasmus programme to continue a mobility pattern to that country. Perhaps there could be a similar programme that is domestically driven. Obviously it is a decision for Government to perhaps match the Turing scheme with a similar Irish initiative. That would be a decision for Government to make.