Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join with Deputy Ó Cathasaigh in commending DCU on its work on an autism-friendly campus. I know that is something that runs very deep in DCU.

Everyone gets funding in phase 1 of the €3 million programme. Similar to yesterday, we announced the student assistance fund or mental health funding, and people get it in proportion to the number of enrolled students. I have a list and I can provide the Deputy with it. All 19 publicly funded HEIs get a proportion of the €3 million. Many of them are already doing very good work on universal design. I spoke at a conference at Atlantic Technological University, ATU, Sligo in recent months. It is taking a real leadership role. This money will take existing plans to the next level and support and supplement work that is already under way. I will provide the breakdown of that for the interest of the committee.

The second point Deputy Ó Cathasaigh made on sharing good practice is a vital one. I want to assure him in that regard. We must be honest with each other. There are relatively low levels of support available for students with an intellectual disability or an autistic student in higher education compared to what they are perhaps used to in school. I am not saying there are not challenges in school, but we are not where we need to be in higher education. That is why we decided to put in place this fund to try to rectify that. As step 1, we carried out a mapping exercise to find out what already exists. We did find that ten higher education institutions were already running various provisions for people with intellectual disabilities and autistic students, to varying degrees of success and intensity. The call is going out to universities to see what they are doing and to see if they could do more. When they look at what they are doing and given that we have them thinking about it again, they can look at how they can step up and do what they are doing in Trinity or show the commitment that DCU has shown, to give two examples. There have already been workshops where we are bringing people together. I did not intend to give the impression that we are leaving people to their own devices and wishing them the best of luck. We are very much bringing people together and explaining that the policy intent is to increase the number of students with an intellectual disability and the number of autistic students getting in and successfully completing higher education. We let them know what is already in place around the country. Those with something in place are asked to enhance it or do more, and the nine without anything in place are asked to do something. Of approximately 19 publicly funded higher education institutions, ten have various programmes and we are asking the other nine if they can now do something. That is not on the never-never; these are projects that we want to be in a position to fund for the next three years, starting in the next academic year in September 2023.