Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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600. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will report on the current number of CAO accounts to date; and the way in which this information compares to CAO accounts made in 2019 and 2020. [4216/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Universities and Institutes of Technology are autonomous and determine their own procedures for admission. The CAO process applications for undergraduate, and some postgraduate, courses on their behalf.

Decisions on admissions are made by the higher education institutions who then instruct the CAO to make offers to successful candidates. Therefore neither I nor my Department have a function in relation to such matters and information on application figures is held by the CAO, not by my Department.

According to figures released by the CAO 66,457 applications had been received by 20th January, the deadline for availing of the reduced early bird fee of €30. The number of applications reached at this stage in 2020 was 61,387, meaning that there is an increase of 5,000 over this time last year.

However it remains to be seen if this represents a significant increase in applications, or a change in application timelines. As can be seen from the figures below, the 61,387 applications last year represented a 1,700 increase on applications the year before as at 20th January. However by the closing date of 1st February applications in 2020 and 2019 were equivalent.

My Department will continue to closely monitor indicators of demand for higher education in 2021, in order to assess if there is a need to create further places.