Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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14. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of additional places that have been added to nursing and medicine since 2020 for Irish and EU students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23293/24]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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How many nursing and medicine places for Irish and EU students are currently in the system? To broaden that out, I ask the Minister a simple question - does he agree with the statement, "We do not train half enough health and social care professionals"?

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I will answer the question regarding nursing and medicine first. Ensuring an appropriate pipeline of suitably qualified professionals in nursing and medicine is a key priority for me and my Department. I want to build on the progress made in the past few years in expanding the number of places in these disciplines. In 2020 and 2021, in response to particular circumstances relating to the pandemic, temporary once-off places were created. In nursing, 134 places were created in 2020 and 205 were created in 2021. Recognising the requirement for systemic expansion, substantial permanent expansion has been introduced in more recent years, with 135 nursing and midwifery places created in 2022 and a further 255 in 2023. In addition, 140 places were made available in Northern Ireland in 2023 for students from this jurisdiction.

In July 2022, a landmark agreement was reached between the medical schools, the Department and the Department of Health to increase the number of annual medicine places available for Irish and EU students by 200 by 2026. This increase is being phased in and 160 of the 200 places will be available for Irish and EU students from this September. This represents a huge increase in the existing infrastructure. An agreement was also reached in February with Queen's University Belfast for the funding of 25 additional medical places there from September 2024. These places will be cofunded by my Department and the Department of Health. Students who take up one of these places will commit to applying and accepting, if offered, a position in the HSE as an intern at the end of their studies. I will continue to work with all relevant stakeholders, including the HSE, to provide sustainable expansion of places in healthcare programmes across the island of Ireland.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister provided figures but does he agree with the statement, "We do not train half enough health and social care professionals"? That is what the Minister for Health has been saying for the past couple of years. He lays the blame squarely at the feet of Fine Gael for not providing him with the workforce he needs. That is the issue - things are bounced between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and between the Minister for Health and the Minister for further and higher education. The Minister for Health says he is not being given the work supply he needs, therefore he cannot make things work. I ask again if the Minister agrees with that statement. If so, why has so little progress been made to increase the number of places in healthcare, including nursing and medicine? I am trying to get a hold on the issue in terms of the demand, what we need for workforce planning and what is being supplied. How does that match up?

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry to disappoint the Deputy-----

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I am not disappointed.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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There is continuous engagement between our Department, the Department of Health and the HSE with regard to workforce planning and our burgeoning population in view of the fact that the economy has been completely revived since 2011. I know the Deputy and her party like to create the impression that everybody is leaving the country, but the reality is that they are not. We have a growing population with growing needs. People are living longer and older, which is a great thing. We know, as a Government, that we will need more disciplines across a wide area of the public sector. We know and appreciate that, and we work within budgetary constraints. The attempt the Deputy is trying to make to turn this into some sort of an internal Government Punch-and-Judy thing could not be further from the truth. As already stated, I read out the numbers for nursing and medicine, about which the Deputy asked, particularly in an all-island context, which is something, I presume, the Deputy would welcome. As the Taoiseach has said in this Chamber, it is the Government's intention to increase the number of places in all disciplines, including dentistry and speech and language therapy.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister spoke about people not leaving the country. I will give him an example from the small, remote, rural area of Belmullet in which I live and from the Mullet Peninsula in County Mayo. More than 50 young people have left to go to Australia alone. Those are the facts, and he can check them out with his local people. Many of them are nurses, doctors and other clinicians we badly need here. It certainly gives me no joy whatsoever that this is the situation we are in. I obviously welcome an all-island approach. I firmly believe in a national health service based on need and not on ability to pay, but I also believe we need the workforce planning to be able to facilitate that. What is happening in the context of further and higher education and health is, as the Minister knows, that the former is so underfunded. I think €309 million was the figure agreed in respect of further and higher education because it was so underfunded. Many foreign students are coming in. They are very welcome, but we also need to make sure that we have the workforce we need here and that the clinical places are available. The other Minister is saying that there are not enough clinical places available to produce the workforce we need.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I do not agree there is any problem with foreign students coming into Irish universities. Plenty of Irish pharmacists, doctors and physiotherapists train in Scotland, Wales and England every year. This has been the case for some time. That is a good thing. I do not agree with that at all.

The Deputy referred to it being underfunded. I accept that there is a figure to which we would all like to get. It would be appropriate for the Deputy to recognise that in the past two budgets, the former Minister, now Taoiseach, made substantial progress in bridging that gap. I do not think that even the Deputy, as former spokesperson in this area, said in the Sinn Féin pre-budget submission that the gap should be closed in one calendar year. I do not believe anybody would suggest that. If the Deputy has to inquired with me about it, then I ask her to at least not be disingenuous and say that we can somehow close the gap in one year.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I am not.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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With regard to population, I take my statistics from the Central Statistics Office. I represent a rural constituency. The Deputy knows as well as I do that every district electoral division has experienced an increase in population. This cant that people are leaving the country is just not true.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am trying to get in as many people as possible.