Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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1306. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of access programmes to assist disadvantaged students enter third level during each of the past five years; the number of students who have entered third level using these programmes during each of these years; the funding allocated to the programmes during each of these years. [33629/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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As part of the implementation of national access policy and the national access plan, my Department, through the HEA, supports the access programmes of higher education institutions. This has included support for the HEAR admissions scheme which targets entry by school-leavers from disadvantaged backgrounds to seventeen HEA institutions (). The HEAR scheme has operated on a fully national basis, as part of the annual CAO process since 2010.

A summary of the number of students entering through the scheme over the past five years is provided in Table A (attached), together with a summary of the Strategic Innovation Funding (SIF) amounts allocated to both the HEAR and DARE scheme for students with disabilities in 2010 and 2011.

As part of the annual recurrent grant to twenty-six higher education institutions, the HEA includes metrics in the HEA funding allocation model which recognise and encourage institutional performance in relation to access. The metrics used for this element are based on the number of students from target groups in the National Access Plan, who are enrolled in each funded institution. The target groups are first time mature student entrants to undergraduate programmes of study; students from under-represented socio-economic groups; undergraduates who are eligible for disability funding support and a small number of students who are members of the Irish Traveller community. A summary of this element of the overall higher education funding allocation model is outlined in Table B (attached).

While these metrics are used to inform grant allocations, the above amounts do not represent core funding specifically for access. The HEA allocates a block grant to institutions and each HEI must allocate funding from within that to support access.

The metrics used include data gathered through an equal access survey that is administered as part of the annual registration process of each institution. Based on the voluntary response by students to this survey, Table C (attached) sets out an estimate of the overall number of entrants from the two target socio-economic groups (non-manual and semi-unskilled) in the national access plan to twenty-six, HEA funded institutions.

Table A