Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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154. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide an update on increasing transfer rates from FET to degree programmes; if he will outline in particular any progress made in increasing transfer rates from courses such as pre-nursing and pre-law into degree courses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59809/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The majority of our statistics on higher education enrolments are drawn from the Student Records System (SRS) of the HEA. The HEA Student Records System (SRS) has been collecting the entry basis of students entering higher education programmes from 2018/2019 academic year.

The table below outlines the overall number of first-year new entrants accepted onto undergraduate nursing and law degree programmes based on field of study for the last three academic years available.

The breakdown of the number of these entrants reported to have entered on the basis of a further education qualification is outlined below. This is the most granular level of detail available from the SRS and does not specify which course they applied from.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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156. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his Department has a target with regard to increasing the number of students enrolled in veterinary medicine. [59760/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has recently sought expressions of interest from higher education institutions interested in building capacity in Dentistry, Pharmacy, Medicine, Nursing, and Veterinary from academic year 2024-25 or 2025-26. The closing date for EOIs was the 18th November. This process has been designed to respond swiftly to national skills needs, and EOIs are sought from institutions with capability to expand existing courses in these areas.

The HEA has informed my department that, 39 expressions of interest have been received. Of these, 20 institutions have proposed to deliver new courses, and 19 institutions are proposing to expand on existing courses in the selected disciplines. Overall, responses represent a rapid, nationwide engagement with the call, with expressions of interest in developing new courses in Pharmacy and Veterinary from all four provinces.

My Department does not place a quota on the number of veterinary medicine places available in HEIs. Ensuring a supply of qualified Vets to meet the demands of the sector is a priority for my Department. Workforce planning requirements for the veterinary medicine sector requires advice from and consultation with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Veterinary Council of Ireland, as the regulators of the profession.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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157. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding the long-term plan for the location of Bray Institute of Further Education; the timeline for this project to be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59010/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The College of the Future Major Projects Fund will support the implementation of the vision set out in the Further Education Strategy.

During my recent visit to Bray Institute of Further Education I was pleased to announce that Kildare Wicklow ETBs strategic assessment proposal to develop a Further Education College on the Bray campus was successful in the first stage of the assessment process under the FET College of the Future Major Projects Fund.

KWETB’s strategic assessment proposal envisages the development of a new Wicklow College of Further Education that would incorporate the existing PLC and consolidate FET services which would see the renovation and removal of existing buildings to transform it into a state-of-art campus.

This proposal will now progress to the next stage of the project lifecycle under the public Spending Code which requires the development of a detailed Preliminary Business Case which will begin in early 2023. A further evaluation of preliminary business cases for the ten proposals being allowed to progress to the second stage of the assessment process will be undertaken in 2023.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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158. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will clarify the conditions under which a student can be deemed to be estranged from their parents for the purposes of the SUSI grant. [59726/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The decision on eligibility for a student grant is a matter, in the first instance, for the centralised student grant awarding authority SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland) to determine.

For student grant purposes, students are categorised according to their circumstances either as students dependent on parents or a legal guardian, or as independent mature students. A student may be assessed as an independent student (i.e. assessed without reference to parental income and address) if he/she has attained the age of 23 on the 1st of January of the year of first entry to an approved course and is not ordinarily resident with his/her parents from the previous 1st October. Otherwise, he/she would be assessed as a dependent student, i.e., assessed with reference to parental income and address.

Only in exceptional cases, where compelling evidence of irreconcilable estrangement from parents/guardians is provided, can candidates who are under 23 be assessed without reference to their parents/guardians income or address, Article 21(3) (b) of the Scheme refers.

If an individual applicant considers that she/he has been unjustly refused a student grant, or that the rate of grant awarded is not the correct one, she/he may appeal, in the first instance, to SUSI

Where an individual applicant has had an appeal turned down in writing by an appeals officer in SUSI and remains of the view that the scheme has not been interpreted correctly in his/her case, an appeal may be submitted to the independent Student Grants Appeals Board within the required time frame (i.e. not later than 30 days after the notification of the determination of the appeals officer to the applicant). Such appeals can be made by the appellant on line via www.studentgrantappeals.ie.