Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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7. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will detail progress on supporting more students with disabilities to access further and higher education, including the status of the new National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36753/22]

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, for attending. Can the Minister detail progress on supporting students with disabilities to access further and higher education? Can he also provide an update on the new national plan for equity of access to higher education?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his question. I welcome his appointment to the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. We are for looking forward to working with him on that committee.

Inclusion is one of the core strategic goals for our Department. Our ambition is to ensure that we provide support and opportunities to persons with special and additional needs. On the higher education side, I am pleased to say that the target set in the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2019 in the context of increasing participation in higher education for people with disabilities was not only met but was exceeded. Specific targets to increase participation in higher education by students with a physical or sensory disability were also met. In fact, they actually revised the targets and increased the level of ambition. I also want to be honest because I sometimes think that when targets are met, I am little bit suspicious because they can sometimes be set too low. If one sets targets, exceeds them and then exceeds the new targets, one wonders if those targets are ambitious enough.

I am very proud of the work that our sector and our country have done in respect of inclusion, but I also know that when one looks behind the headline figures, that there are certain areas that were not being measured. We were not measuring, for example, participation of students with intellectual disabilities. The plan was silent in respect of autism. These are two areas we have moved on in the past couple of weeks together as the Deputy will know and we have announced a new funding stream. In the first instance, €3 million has been allocated to all the colleges to develop universal designs and initiatives that support autistic students. This could be sensory rooms, wayfinding apps or new ways of teaching.

In the second and very exciting initiative, which will kick-off in 12 months' time, we have now had a call-out to all of the universities to ask them to design and come up with programmes for people with intellectual disabilities. As a Government, we have committed €3 million a year for the next four years to the programme. That will give us more projects like the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities, which has been a roaring success, but also to have more projects around the country.

The national access plan is almost finalised. I signed off on it just yesterday. I will be bringing it to Cabinet probably at the end of this month and will publish it in August. We will be looking at a number of new areas, at people who have had experience in the care system, at more supports for people parenting singly or on their own, and we will not just be measuring access but will be measuring outcome. That is, not just that you get in the door, but what actually happened when you got in the door and how did you succeed?

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister and that is a positive reply. It is good to hear that the targets are being met and are being exceeded. I agree with him that the outcomes are completely crucial to this. I know of a cohort of students who recently completed a programme in the new Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest.

It has been absolutely fantastic. An element of equity in accessing education is the hardship fund provided at third level. Officially it is known as the student assistance fund. In the past academic year €18.5 million was allocated to it. There is no commonality in how it is disbursed, how people apply for it and when they apply. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul contacted me because its education officer is unable to properly advise people going into the scheme how to avail of it. There seems to be a lack of commonality. I have tried to elicit that information through parliamentary questions but it would be very useful if the Department could detail in tabular format for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul how so much public money can be properly disbursed and how it can advise people going into third level education how to avail of it.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I would be delighted to do so. I would be very happy to meet with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. If it is outlining the issue to the Deputy then it is definitely an issue I want to hear about and see how we can rectify it. Understandably there is a degree of flexibility and discretion around the student assistance programme because there has to be. This is not an excuse for a lack of information or support we can provide the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The idea is that there is discretion and flexibility to help students on a one-off basis with exceptional needs payments and the like. It is disbursed to universities and higher education institutions on a pro ratabasis. They are each given a budget for the year. This year it is the highest amount it has ever been, as far as I can recall, at €18.5 million. Certainly I will do that. I have long been of the view that we need to make the information easier to get for students. The Deputy has triggered a thought in my mind. I would be very happy to meet him and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to see how we can assist. The other fund we have available is the fund for students with disabilities. We had 15,145 students access it in the academic year 2020-2021. It is another funding stream available for people with disabilities in our education system.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. That is positive. At a recent meeting the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science discussed prisoners, another group of people who sometimes enter further and higher education through a different pathway. I made the point that in the United States surveys by Ohio University have identified that up to 40% of inmates accessing higher education through the prison service have learning difficulties. We have no empirical evidence in this regard in Ireland. Higher education educators going into prisons can see this. We can very quickly see when an individual struggles with dyscalculia or dyslexia. It is wrong. There are certain interventions that a teacher is skilled to make but there is no diagnostic capacity. There is no capacity to wrap this up or quantify what it is and how to properly deal with it. It would be great if the Minister's Department could do this. It is not in the realm of justice. I would say it is in the realm of further and higher education.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I want to raise several issues. With regard to accessibility for people with disabilities, it is crucial that SUSI is made available for part-time courses. Many people with disabilities, and people without disabilities, find they have to do part-time courses. This is why it is very important. Rather than having separate funds if we could provide access to SUSI it would be very good. With regard to the student assistance fund, will the Minister see whether it can be made available earlier this year? What many students and families say is that they need the money in September. Waiting until October, November and December can often restrict the choices of students and put them into hardship. They get off on the wrong footing or are in a situation where they have to take out loans. Making it available earlier would be a practical measure we could take.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Today is the deadline for SUSI applications. A small number of students, including students with disabilities, were trapped abroad because of Covid and cannot now meet the residency requirement of being here for three of the past five years. Has the Minister any intention or plan to assist these students? They cannot complete their applications online after they state they have not been here. The system does not allow them to go any further. It is a serious issue for a small number of students, including a number with disabilities.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome that more funding has been made available for students with disabilities. As other speakers said, the timing is crucial. There also needs to be more information. People always seem to be looking for information and contacting us but we do not have it. We need more information, clarification and timescales. Will the Minister produce a leaflet or contact the colleges more to make sure all of the information is given? This is something I was asked about recently.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The short answer to Deputy Murnane O'Connor is yes, in that we do need to do more and to be better in providing information. I thank Deputy Stanton for contacting me and bringing this issue to my attention. It had not been brought to my attention previously. I immediately contacted my officials and I will engage with them again after Question Time. It would be very unfair if people, through no fault of their own, were caught abroad because of a global pandemic and the criterion was used against them. I am actively on this matter and I appreciate the time sensitivity. I will come back to the Deputy.

Deputy Conway-Walsh asked about part-time courses. She is right. It is not unusual for a student with a disability to be told or advised to do a four-year degree because they are well able for it but that it might work better for them it to do it over five or six years. We have asked Professor Tom Collins, one of the co-chairs of our new funding implementation group, to do specific work on part-time education, what it is and how we define it. It is an area I would like to move forward on. The Deputy's suggestion on part-time courses in respect of disability might be something to start on. With regard to the student assist fund, we will try to make it available earlier.

Prisoner education is the responsibility of the Department and approximately €15 million a year is spent on it. If we can get it right it has the ability to be a circuit-breaker in terms of deprivation and people going in and out of prison. I visited Shelton Abbey recently and I will speak to Deputy Crowe about it. I will be very happy to come back to the Deputy on this. We are engaging with the Irish Prison Service to see how we can roll out more programmes and how we can have accreditation and make apprenticeships available.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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If diagnostic testing could be started in the next year it would be great.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I take the point on learning difficulties and I will revert directly to the Deputy on it.