Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I used the McEgan and Mallow college courses as an example to illustrate the position regarding PLC courses. Consider a student called Hannah, for example, who is clearly passionate about becoming a nurse. She is a 2020 leaving certificate graduate and is now going to be competing with 2022 leaving certificate students and the inflated grades. There needs to be a certain amount of reserved places for people coming through those different channels.

It is not always just about the degree course, the Minister also needs to have additional capacity in those PLC courses and the various different channels through which people will access nursing. Has the Minister looked at that, and will he confirm that there will be additional places so that people who are coming through those channels will have reserved places in those courses? There would have been at least three or four people coming through some of those course who would have been expecting to get into a nursing degree last year but did not make it. Were the additional places at the expense of the PLC people or were they over and above new places?

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