Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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87. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of PhD positions funded by his Department or bodies under the aegis of his Department; the average stipend or salary paid to full-time PhD candidates through these funding streams; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35430/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Internally, as part of its learning and career development offering - my Department operates an Advanced Payment of Fees Scheme on an annual basis, where employees are invited to apply for advanced funding to undertake third-level studies. Records indicate that as part of this Scheme and its preceding Refund of Fees Scheme, funding has been provided to approximately ten employees to undertake Doctorate studies in their own time, while continuing to be employed and no stipend is paid.  

In terms of external PHD funding, there are two areas that my Department and the bodies under its aegis are involved in:

The INTERREG VA Programme is one of 60 cross-border programmes operating across the EU, which are designed to overcome issues that arise due to the existence of a border. The current INTERREG VA programme is due to run from 2016 to 2022. The programme area includes the six Border counties of Ireland, Northern Ireland and part of Western Scotland.

INTERREG VA has four strands that are crucial for job creation and growth. My Department, along with our counterparts in Northern Ireland, the Department for the Economy, is responsible for funding projects under the Research and Innovation strand. The number of full time PhD positions approved across the Research and Innovation strand is 126. A stipend grant is paid in a unit cost of €16,869.28 (per annum) in the UK and €18,500 in Ireland.

The Health and Safety Authority has part-funded one PhD position in the past 5 years.  This research study was co-funded by the Authority and Teagasc from 2016 – 2020 with the candidate receiving an annual stipend of €22,000 split equally between the Authority and Teagasc. The research was conducted and supervised by Teagasc in association with University College Dublin.