Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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496. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the numbers or percentage of students from disadvantaged areas attending third level colleges in 2014 [38089/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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While no statistics are available as yet for the academic year 2014/15 I would like to point out that information is not gathered in the format requested by the Deputy.

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.

Table A