Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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46. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of the practice whereby third level institutes do not fill all their places, but maintain points at an inflated level in order to make the course more attractive; if she has investigated this alleged practice; the action she has taken in respect of individual Institutions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43693/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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While the number of places offered on courses within Higher Education Authority (HEA) funded institutions is a matter for the institutions themselves to decide upon, the issue raised by the Deputy has arisen in the main due to the proliferation of specialist undergraduate programmes in recent years (and the limited number of places available on such programmes). This is a cause for concern for both my Department and the HEA. Accordingly my Department and the HEA have, since 2011, been working in partnership with key stakeholders and higher education institutions to broaden entry to undergraduate courses at level 8 of the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ), while at the same time reducing the number of grading bands used in the Leaving Certificate examination and developing a new CAO points scale to correlate with these. Full details of this initiative to reform the transition from secondary to higher education, and the reports published on this, are available at . Under this on-going reform initiative, the seven universities have committed to achieving a significant reduction in the number of NFQ level 8 courses which they offer over the next 2 years.