Dr. Frances O'Connell:

My brief as the vice president for student education and experience includes the access agenda and all student support services. I thank the Cathaoirleach for giving the Technological University of the Shannon the opportunity to present today. Physically, we are in four counties - Limerick, Clare, Tipperary and Athlone. We serve more than 14,500 students, providing programmes from level 6 up to PhD, which is level 10 on the national framework of qualifications, NFQ. We have more than 62 nationalities on our campuses. Today, we will focus on the specific needs of our students who present to our disability services with autism.

Just to note, 52% of our students are deemed to be socioeconomically disadvantaged. We note that on the basis of them being in receipt of the student assistance fund. We are also the first technological university to be accredited as a university of sanctuary, so we very much support students coming to us from direct provision centres. That is very important to us in our university. We have just published our strategic plan. One of the values of TUS is a very strong value that arose from the entire community, both internally and externally and with our stakeholders, namely, to be inclusive. That is a fundamental purpose of our third-level education provision. Some 7% of students are registered with our disability service, which is approximately 1,000 students. The number of students who are now registered as autistic has increased from 17 in 2014 to 128 now. That is an increase of 87%, yet our funding for students with disabilities through the Department and the HEA has decreased by 48% in the period of 2018 to 2022 from €615,000 to €320,000.

Today, we are presenting the opportunities we have to support our students, but also the challenges that come with that. I would like to hand over to my colleagues, Ms Lisa Hanlon, who is in charge of disability services in our midlands campus in Athlone, as well as Dr. Carolann Bargary, who is in charge of access services.