John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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138. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the budget set aside by his Department or any other Department for 2017 for the promotion of Ireland and Dublin as a base for the education of international students in the English language; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5219/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department provided funding of €27,495 to Marketing English in Ireland, a representative body from the English Language Training sector, last year to employ a student officer to assist them with their promotion efforts.

In October 2016, I launched Irish Educated, Globally Connected An International Education Strategy for Ireland, 2016-2020. Additional funding of €1.5 million was provided to my Department in Budget 2017 to drive forward the actions within the new International Education Strategy.

As part of the strategy, Enterprise Ireland (EI), under the Education in Ireland brand, will assume the lead role in promoting Ireland as a location to the Non-EU Adult English Language Training sector. This will happen as soon as the International Education Mark (IEM) is in place, which is envisaged to be in 2018. The promotion of the Non-EU Adult ELT sector by EI will require additional resources to fund these activities including potentially the costs of a market adviser and new in country pathfinders. EI will likely utilise some of its funding for international education promotion to research and prepare for their role in these markets this year.