Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Ensuring a supply of qualified vets and pharmacists to meet the demands of Ireland's agri-food and healthcare sector is an important issue for my Department.

Higher Education Institutions are academically autonomous when it comes to decisions on the courses they provide, and do not require the approval of my Department to launch a new programme in either of these disciplines.

In recognition of challenges in relation to physical infrastructure to enable such provision, the Higher Education Authority ran an Expressions of Interest process to identify options for building capacity in a number of key disciplines, including Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy.

As the Deputy is aware, there is a substantial capital cost associated with the development of many of these options and it is important that the scale of the costs is fully understood and planned for. The options identified through the HEA's process have the potential to transform the numbers of students who can take up places in these key areas. This would be an expansion at a scale rarely seen across five high demand areas and is a significant investment of public funding in our institutions.

Detailed discussions are continuing to take place about the ways and means to address capital costs for the provision of any new school, including in the context of an expected upcoming review of Departmental National Development Plan allocations. It will naturally take some time for these discussions to reach a conclusion, though I understand that the NDP review is likely to commence later this year.

I am continuing to work with the Ministers for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Health and the Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform on the next steps.