Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have not been made aware of the issue Deputy Conway-Walsh raised, but I will certainly become aware of it and revert to the Deputy on it. To be clear, the overall policy direction I want to go in is financially to support better our PhD research. The Deputy and I share that view.

On what Deputy Kenny said, there are about 11,000 PhD and research masters students in Ireland and about 2,700 of them are non-EU students. The issue in discussing this, which shows the need for the review, is there is such a range of stipend conditions for PhD researchers already. Some are funded through Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council and they receive a stipend of around €19,000. Around 2,000 researchers are funded by higher education institutions themselves, and I believe the stipends there range from €8,000 to €18,500. There are around 4,000 PhD researchers categorised as self-funding. This is understood to include persons funded by their employers. Then there are about 1,000 researchers funded by other sources, including Teagasc, the Health Research Board and European programmes. Thus, there is a whole variety and a landscape here. I am going to run out of time, but the terms of reference of the review are really to look at current financial supports, the consistency, the equity of arrangements, the visa situation, the research-employer-student status and graduate outcomes. The group is to report to me on all that in the coming weeks.

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