James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

On disability and enabling students, there is also the disability access route to education, DARE, programme, for higher education. One of the ways that works is that 5% of places are ring-fenced for students with disabilities, and within that 5% students with disabilities are competing with each other, not other students. That is one way to level the playing field or an attempt to. There is an additional €5 million in this revision for students with disabilities. It covers things like the fund for students with disabilities and miscellaneous methods to ensure students can fully participate and not be advantaged because of their disabilities. That fund is getting €1.5 million.

On the people centred supports that we spoke about there and the learner unique model being matched, there is a pilot programme, which I have allocated €2.85 million to, running now. I have also increased the path for a second phase of that about intellectual disability significantly. I got Cabinet approval for that just three weeks ago. There is a lot of work going on in that area but we will do a note for the Cathaoirleach on further supports as well.