Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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48. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps that are being taken to increase places at third level for in-demand courses to address skill shortages and take unnecessary pressure off the leaving certificate system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6457/22]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The Government has decided to deny the students the choice when it comes to this year's leaving certificate. This is despite students having come through years of a severely disrupted leaving certificate cycle. I and Sinn Féin believe that that is wrong and they should have had a choice. Students deserve to be given a choice. What steps has the Minister taken to ensure additional places are made available on the in-demand courses, particularly those courses where there is both a high demand and a skills shortage?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Sinn Féin's government in Northern Ireland has decided that the A-levels should proceed. It did not offer anybody in Northern Ireland a choice. I do not think young people who look across the island will ignore the breathtaking hypocrisy of the stance that Sinn Féin has about the exams down here and the stance it has about the exams up there. I have met students, as I am sure the Deputy has. I have been in countless schools across the country. I think I have been in five or six counties in the past week. When I talk to students now, I find that they are happy with the certainty and clarity when I take them through the options they have in relation to the papers, and when I take them through the really good decision that my colleague, the Minister for Education, took on grade inflation. It compares very much favourably with an area on which Sinn Féin has been very quiet in respect of the A-levels in Northern Ireland. I am sure that the Deputy will respond-----

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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When Fine Gael has representation in the North, we will deal with that. I look forward to it.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Sinn Féin has representation in the North. We generally engage constructively, but taking young people for fools is not going to wash at all.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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We are not taking anybody for fools.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland is, or at least was, the joint head of the Government. A-levels are going ahead with no predicted or calculated grades. Where Sinn Féin is in government, it is not making the announcement that it is shouting and roaring for down here in opposition. Be that as it may, Sinn Féin is actually a partitionist party when it comes to the issue of educational policy. It is the same on college fees, but we will get to that in a moment.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Right, Minister.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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It has to be said; it cannot just be one-way traffic. It cannot just be given; it has to be taken as well

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Do not worry.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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If Sinn Féin is serious about government, it needs to be consistent in its stance, North and South.

With regard to this issue and what steps I am taking, this Government has increased the places in third level by 6,000 over the past two years. That is a massive increase. It is important that leaving certificate students hear that the number of applications to the CAO on deadline day this year versus last year was down 1,141. I say that to be, hopefully, somewhat reassuring to students. Now that we know the situation in respect of the leaving certificate and we have clarity earlier than we had last year, we will shortly see the breakdown from the CAO of how many students applied for the different courses. My Department will do what we did last year and the year before. We will work with the system on additional places. I fully agree with the Deputy on the issue of in-demand places. I have gone over my time. I would like to talk about that in my next response in regard to medicine and some of the steps we want to take this year.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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We need to recognise that grade inflation is only part of the story. The fact that CAO points are going up is also about how many places are available. Every year more students are sitting the leaving certificate, but as the Minister has admitted so many times, third-level education is not adequately funded. He must take responsibility for that. His party has been in government since 2011. This has led to an increase in the number of courses that are cheaper to deliver rather than an expansion of in-demand courses that reflect the real needs of the economy and society. I do not blame the individual colleges. This is how the funding model is set up by the Government. The Government has announced thousands of additional places in the past few years, yet it has had little effect on the pressure of the CAO points,-----

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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That is wrong.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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-----the in-demand courses or the stress of leaving certificate students. That needs to be faced up to. It is important that we admit that the skill needs in our society are not being met in a number of vital areas, particularly healthcare and construction. There is a shortage of dentists, nurses, mental health professionals, as well as quantity surveyors, engineers, architects and many others. There is demand from students and a need from society. We need to join the dots here. A clear example of this is that the number of undergraduate medical places have essentially not increased in the past ten years.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I fully agree with the Deputy that this year should not just be about announcing an additional number of college places. More college places will be available this year. As the Deputy rightly suggested, it has been the case in previous years as well. Budget 2022 provided approximately €20 million for extra growth in the higher education sector. There will be additional funding and places. As the Deputy correctly pointed out, the bigger challenge is to try and focus in this year on the in-demand courses or the courses where there are particular pressure points. One such course is medicine. I fully agree that from a public health policy point of view, we need more doctors. As she will be aware, it is not just a case of creating a college place, because for every place on a medicine course, a training hospital place is required. It is a similar story with dentistry and a number of other courses. What my Department has been doing for the past number of months, and is intensifying now, is trying to work with Department of Health to identify whether we can provide X number more of funded medicine places in September across our college system and the Department of Health can provide Y more training places. I expect to be in a position to bring forward good news on that. Our focus is exactly as the Deputy suggested in looking at the in-demand areas and the areas in which we want to see public service improvement.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister has a responsibility to ensure that people are being trained to have the skills that our society needs. It is not simply about students getting onto the courses that they want; it is about the proper planning for the skills that we need in the future.

Almost 4,000 students enrol in pre-nursing courses. Fewer than 5% of them go on to further education to get nursing degrees in the State. Similarly, people go abroad. The Minister constantly mentions pre-law courses when discussing alternative pathways, but his Department does not collect data on the number of students that progress to law degrees. It is always about places and place availability tomorrow, but we need to be straight and honest with people. We are not providing the education for what we need in society, particularly in the area of medicine. We are not providing what is needed for those nursing students that need the pathway to get into our health service. That, together with the chronic underfunding of higher education, is why there is a shortage of people to fill those positions.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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No, it is not. It is about pathways, actually. It is about recognising that different students will want to do different things. I think the Deputy and I agree that it is about broadening the conversation beyond just higher education to further education apprenticeships. It is about ending the snobby and elitist view that when someone goes to a school, the student believes that the only conversation to have is about the CAO and points. It is complete nonsense. It is a system that we have developed here without any policy debate. It is one of the reasons we have had a shortage of tradespeople in this country. It is because of that pressurised view that we have created that success is about taking one particular path. That is why, this year, the CAO website has been changed. That is why, this year, we have seen a record number of people - 8,607 - apply to be apprentices, which is more than ever before in history of our State. Most of them applied for craft apprenticeships. It is why the CAO.ie/options web page has seen 15,646 direct users – students, one would presume – go and check out apprenticeships from that link. It is absolutely about pathways. It is about recognising that different students will want to do different things.

On the pre-nursing issue, and I want to agree with Deputy on this, we need to see more places ring-fenced in higher education for pre-nursing students, and not just a general increase in the overall nursing numbers. That is something I am actively working on with the institutions.