Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question; it is one of the most important with which we will deal this evening and I will genuinely work with him on this issue. We have had a number of meetings with Empowering People In Care, EPIC. Marissa Ryan, its CEO, is doing great work and Rory Brown, a member of its youth council, recently spoke at the launch of the new national access plan. Before I get into my formal answer, I make the point that we have agreed to include exactly the type of students to whom the Deputy is referring as a priority cohort group in the new national access plan. For the first time, they are identified as a priority group. That is important because what we put in the plan as a priority group gets measured. Ultimately, targets get set and data get generated. It also enables the group to begin to access funding for people leaving aftercare trying to access higher education in terms of the various schemes we have in place.

It is evident from the consultations we have had that those leaving the care system represent an important group whose life experiences and situations merit additional support in accessing and participating in further and higher education. With that in mind, the new national access plan, which I launched in late August, for the first time identifies people with experience of the care system as one of the priority groups for action under the plan. The plan sets a high level of ambition for the higher education system in supporting access, participation and success among groups identified as priority groups. It aims to support inclusion and diversity in the student body. Delivery of the plan is supported by the programme for access to higher education, PATH, which provides a range of supports, including financial supports, to priority groups. The supports include access to bursaries and scholarship schemes and support for people from target groups in accessing initial teacher education. There are other strands to the PATH programme and, in the interest of time, I will send the Deputy a note on those aspects.

In working to address the issues of people with experience of the care system, I acknowledge, as they have asked me to do, that there is a lot more work that needs to be done to develop better data on care leavers and their path through higher education. The first priority will be to establish new baseline data for these learners and then, from that, develop specific targets in terms of increased participation. We will be working to develop better data in this area to help us understand what targeted interventions look like.

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