Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I thank both Deputies. There are an additional 320 new training places via the CAO in the different colleges. That is a significant expansion. I will speak to my good colleague the Minister for further and higher education, Deputy Lawless. My responsibility is, of course, in respect of the clinical training places that must go alongside the academic piece. We moved from a sort of apprenticeship model of nursing to an academic degree model to try to lift standards and expertise as far as possible, and enable the sort of advanced practice we want across the specialisms. We are now trying to do that with health and social care professionals too.

I have met representatives of CORU about its registration processes, which, frankly, were too slow. There has been an enormous improvement to those processes. I have also met the different professions to signal clearly that we will be aligning ourselves with the European standards to enable even greater numbers of people to come from different parts of Europe to work in Ireland. That has not happened in the past at the rate we should have seen. CORU is working hard with the professions to ensure that clinical training places are available not just in acute hospitals but in primary care and other areas as well.

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