Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy, and I assure him that students in the technological universities, including in the new Atlantic technological university serving Mayo, Galway, Sligo, Donegal and the north-west region, will indeed be eligible to apply.

Regarding the further education sector, I am glad the Deputy raised this matter, because we have made two significant changes to support students in further education and training. In the last budget, we abolished the post-leaving certificate, PLC, course levy. A €200 charge had been levied by the Government on people attending a PLC course and that was removed in the budget. It will now be free for people in this State to access PLC courses, so we are putting the State's money where its mouth is in respect of ensuring that people can upskill, reskill and get the training they require to get back into employment.

The second thing we have done is that we have brought in a new fund. Being truthful, we brought it in as a once-off measure in my first year in this role. It is called the mitigating educational disadvantage fund. It is a fund that did not exist before and is intended for community education, ETBs and colleges of further education to draw on. I was in a facility in Kildare yesterday, a youth development training centre, which has been able to buy laptops and to establish a sensory room. This is a sector which has done incredible work but that has been underfunded, and this new funding stream is helping significantly in that regard.

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