Written answers

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Department of Justice, Equality and Defence

Visa Applications

9:00 pm

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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Question 138: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he has had any engagement with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the matter of student entry visas; if he appreciates the volume of students that could be attracted to undertake higher level programmes here if the visa system was less impenetrable; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7156/12]

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy may be interested to learn that 5,412 applications were processed for Irish student visas in 2011. 4,741 of these applications were granted which represents an approval rate of 87.6%. Furthermore the statistics for the total number of non-EEA nationals resident in Ireland on 31 December 2011 on a student permission stood at almost 31,400. In light of these very positive statistics is difficult to understand how the visa and student migration systems could be described as impenetrable. Indeed, dealing specifically with visas for Irish accredited degree programmes, these are already fast-tracked, reflecting the governments international education strategy.

As regards engagement by my Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the matter of student visas, there is regular engagement between all State agencies and education providers on the internationalisation of the Irish Education Services. Indeed this engagement has been in progress for some time. The New Immigration Regime for Full Time Non-EEA student was published by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) in September 2010 and came into operation in January 2011. The New Regime implemented the recommendations of the Interdepartmental Committee on non-EEA Student Migration which was comprised of representatives of INIS and, as they were in 2010, the Department of Education and Skills, The Department of Foreign Affairs , the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport, the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Finance he Office of the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of the Taoiseach.

The new student arrangements were developed in tandem with the internationalisation of education strategy which aims to increase the number of foreign national students engaged in Irish higher education by 50% and in English Language training by 25% by the year 2015. Both initiatives are complementary to each other. As part of the development process of this new strategy the High Level Group was established in late 2009 and comprises representatives of the relevant Government Departments (including Justice and Foreign Affairs) and State Agencies as well as the university, institute of technology and English language sectors.

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