Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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140. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he has undertaken a study to determine if there is any disparity in rates of youth emigration across different graduate groups based on their area of study or qualification; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25799/23]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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A core objective of the tertiary system is to equip learners with the knowledge and skills to adapt to living and working sustainably, whether that is in Ireland or abroad. The International Education strategy recognises the value of both inbound and outbound mobility, providing opportunities for learners to broaden their experience and strengthen global linkages for Ireland. Of the 2021 class of higher education graduates, 14.3% (10,340) were non-Irish domiciled students who completed their studies and graduated in Ireland, a factor which may also impact on graduate retention in Ireland post-graduation.

The Department has not, to date, delivered a comparative study on the outcomes across graduate groups in terms of migration patterns. The outcomes of graduates are monitored through data provided by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), SOLAS, and the Central Statistics Office (CSO). A key resource is the higher education graduate outcomes survey coordinated by the HEA which does capture whether a respondent has acquired employment or is pursuing further study abroad and this information, in the form of the info-byte series of publications, is published by the HEA on www.hea.ie.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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141. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will ensure in Budget 2024 that all three streams of PhD psychology students are fully-funded; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26745/23]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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My Department is strongly committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of the population through the provision of graduates with the key competencies and skills to be effective in the health workforce, and support a range of clinical teams in our health services.

As the Deputy is aware, Higher Education Institutions are autonomous institutions and therefore it is a matter for individual institutions to determine the rate of tuition fees for postgraduate academic programmes including psychology.

Funding was secured in Budget 2023 by the Department of Health to provide for sponsorship for Clinical and Counselling trainee Psychologist PhD programmes. This arrangement is not the responsibility of my Department, but the Department of Health and the HSE.

Issues arising from sponsorships and employment eligibility in relation to psychologists, and indeed more generally, are matters for relevant employers rather than the responsibility of my Department.

With regards to Educational Psychology, it should be noted that a working group in the Department of Education has been examining how NEPS can continue to recruit adequate numbers of suitably qualified staff and continue to respond to the educational psychological needs of children in recognised primary and post-primary schools across the country.

To address supply issues in the medium to long term a workforce plan for educational psychologists is being developed within the Department of Education. As an immediate short-term measure the Department of Education introduced a bursary to support Trainee Educational Psychologists currently in their third year (or third year equivalent) of professional training in University College Dublin (UCD) and Mary Immaculate College (MIC), who expect to graduate in 2023.

Officials in the Department of Education are finalising details with Mary Immaculate College and University College Dublin to provide bursary supports for students of the educational psychological doctorate programme who would graduate in 2024, 2025 and 2026 respectively.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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142. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he has plans to increase the number of places on courses related to health and social care on the accelerated graduate programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26740/23]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science does not place a quota on the number of places on these type of courses as offered by higher education institutions, and as such the number of places provided each year is determined by the institutions themselves in line with their capacity.

Higher Education Institutions are autonomous bodies within the meaning of the Universities Act 1997, the Institutes of Technology Acts 1992 to 2006, and the Technological Universities Act 2018. As such they are autonomous in relation to their administrative and academic affairs, and the courses offered by any institution, and the level at which they are offered, are a matter for the individual institutions to determine

There are two-year professional qualification programmes available in the University of Limerick at Masters level in the disciplines of Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language therapy. The data for the most recently available five years of graduates from these programmes is in the table below. This data was sourced from the Student Records System (SRS) of the HEA .

The Programme for Government commits the Department of Health to working with the education sectors, regulators, and professional bodies to improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.

Health and social care programmes are by their nature complex in delivery. Officials from my Department are continuing to engage with Higher Education Institutions to maximise additionality in Health and Social Care Professional undergraduate programmes from September 2023. My officials are also engaging with the Department of Health as these additional places require additional resources, and fundamentally require placements to be put in place by the HSE and the Department of Health.

My Department has established a working group, including representation from the Department of Health, Education, Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth HSE, the Higher Education Sector and CORU, as well as the higher education sector to specifically examine how placements can be secured to facilitate greater numbers of training places.

This group has made good progress and the HSCP Office within the HSE is developing a Framework for Practice Placement Education. I understand that the Department of Health have also recently appointed a HSCP Officer to lead on enabling expansion in health and social care profession

It is important to say that the provision of such programmes in the further and higher education system must have regard to overall workforce plans which are the responsibility of the relevant agencies and Departments to develop for their sectors. Such plans need to take account of planned service expansion, retirement and improvements in the retention of existing staff, and changes in the mix of staff which employers are best placed to understand and influence.

The HEA have also advised higher education institutions of their intention to conduct an exercise to identify where substantial additional capacity could be built in priority HSCP disciplines. This would likely require the development of physical infrastructure, the recruitment of staff, and the approval of programmes by regulators. These factors will impact on the ultimate timeline for substantial numbers of additional places being made available.