Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and acknowledge the leadership he provided on the development of the technological universities and also in getting the funding debate really out there. Even though we may have some disagreements around some of the priorities, the fact that it is back centre stage is important. I have a very specific question I will ask the Minister before moving on to other points. The €307 million has been identified to deal with the current hole in current funding. One of the points the Minister made is around the provision of additional places in higher education in specific skills areas. These obviously include programmes like medicine where over the full six-year course we are talking about a full economic cost of something in the order of €100,000. It has been flagged in some of the media that up to 1,000 additional places are going to be provided in medicine, climate-related programmes and those where a skills shortage has been identified. Can the Minister give us an assurance that they will all be fully funded? I appreciate his point. If it is 1,000 places, and particularly in respect of the medical places, will all of those be fully funded?