Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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54. To ask the Minister for Health if he has engaged with the Minister for Further and Higher Education to identify the number of places that are required to adequately meet the workforce needs of the healthcare system; the key professions and corresponding courses that need to be expanded; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26944/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Health and Social Care workforce planning and ensuring an appropriate pipeline of suitably qualified healthcare professionals in Ireland is a top priority for the Government.

Department of Health officials engage on an ongoing basis with colleagues in the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that we train enough graduates with the skills necessary to support the delivery of health and social care services and to develop a strategic approach to workforce planning for the health sector.

Ongoing discussions between both Departments are in relation to increasing domestic supply of health and Social Care graduates in the short term, through the immediate provision of additional places, and the longer-term planning being undertaken around future skills needs in context of future demand for health and social care services.

Officials from both Departments engaged with the Higher Education Authority and the Higher Education Sector to identify where additional places can be provided in the higher education system for the next academic year. These additional places will be targeted at areas of acute skills need and will include places in healthcare courses such as nursing and medicine and other health and social care professions. This work is at an advanced stage, and it is hoped that a significant number of additional places will be created on health-related courses in September 2022.