Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Those extra places were over and above. While they may not have been ring-fenced for people in further education and training, they certainly did not take away from any existing places. I want to make the point that these were newly created places amounting to 335 additional nursing and midwifery places over 2020 and 2021. That figure will grow further.

I cannot give the Deputy a commitment on the record of the House until I can be sure that I can deliver on it. I can tell the Deputy that it is an absolute focus of my Department in our conversations with the universities that we do not just look for an increase in the global figure when it comes to nursing and midwifery, as relevant to this question. We also look to see how we can grow the number of places that they set aside from that additionality for the further education and training pathway. I am very confident that we can and will be continuing to expand the number of students we will be taking into our PLC courses for nursing. We are investing record amounts there, but quite frankly I believe that we can do even more on that with the budgets we have and the facilities we have. I will come back on the Deputy's specific examples, and I accept that the Deputy is using them as examples. The piece I am trying to work on is the pathway between further education and training and higher education, which Deputy Moynihan has outlined very well.

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