Professor Áine Hyland:

I think so. We have to look separately at them. To some extent, some of the new access programmes have done that. For example, in UCC, which is the one I am familiar with, up to 15% of our places, and on some courses 25% of places, are set aside for early school leavers or students who have not done the leaving certificate, much less done well enough in the leaving certificate. They can bypass the CAO system. That is why I emphasised at the beginning that it is a matter for each university. They have the freedom to do that, for example, the programme that qualified Don O'Leary, that is, the youth and community work programme in UCC. Maynooth had something similar. Some 50% of the places on that programme were allocated for students who did not get the points in the leaving certificate. They either were early school leavers or mature students, or they had come through further education courses. There is much potential flexibility in the higher education system if they would use it to its full advantage. I do not know if that helps.

In fact, as Professor Looney stated earlier, on a lot of these issues it is worth looking at what is happening already. There is a lot happening already, sometimes on a small scale and sometimes not in the very competitive courses. Where we would have, say, 50% of places in youth and community available, there might be only 5% in medicine because it is difficult to get them to agree, for various reasons, to give more of their places.

Some of that has been going on for a long time but it is happening more and more now. Overall, between all the various categories of students, for example, students with special needs, students from educational disadvantage and students coming from further education, I reckon that approximately 20% of all higher education places are going to those students. Possibly, only 70% or so of all first-year places, or maybe even less, are available through the CAO. It varies a lot and there is a lot of flexibility there if institutions want to use it.