Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. It is now 17 years since I graduated from UL. At the time I went there it was very much a Limerick campus. It was in Castletroy but its footprint has extended into County Clare. It is widely believed the campus is now at saturation point on the Limerick side. It has very little room to expand unless it starts knocking and rebuilding some of its facilities or building on playing pitches. Thus the future of the campus is on the County Clare side. Clare County Council, in co-operation with other bodies in the mid-west, is putting forward a proposal for an SDZ. This is key for realising the full capacity of the campus and also creating research and innovation hubs around the curtilage of the campus. It is essential this happens.

There is also room to develop a paramedic training facility in Ennis. There is a fabulous facility, which the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, opened just a few weeks ago. It is state-of-the-art. We should not send UL graduates to Liverpool to complete practical training that can be done in the mid-west. We could have graduates coming out of the mid-west with paramedic training. Imagine what that would mean for our health service.

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