Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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1850. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if, in line with Action 88 of the Autism Committee’s Final Report, he has plans to ensure that understanding autism training is a component in all higher education courses relative to health and social care, including medicine, nursing, dentistry, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, social work and psychology; and the estimated first- and full-year cost, respectively, of implementing this proposal. [57301/23]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The content of higher education programmes is a matter for each higher education institution, and any relevant professional regulatory body. The regulatory bodies for the professions listed include CORU, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, the Dental Council, and the Irish Medical Council.Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are autonomous within the meaning of the Universities Act 1997 and the Technological Universities Act 2018. As autonomous bodies with academic and administrative freedom, each institution is responsible for its own policy and programme development, including in relation to any potential autism training modules, in conjunction with the requirements of the relevant regulatory body, under the terms of EU Directive 2005/36. The Department distributes recurrent funding to the HEA for disbursement directly to the HEA's designated higher education institutions. The HEA distributes this funding as a block grant to the institutions. As autonomous bodies, use of this funding, including in relation to particular components of programmes, falls to the individual institution. Neither I nor the Department have a role in the development of such policies. As such, it is not possible to provide costing figures.It is worth noting that in 2022 a new strand of the Programme for Access to Higher Education PATH Strand 4 was launched. The PATH fund supports the objectives of the National Access plan and PATH 4 is a dedicated €12 million of funding which will be invested between 2022-2025 in supporting Universal Design and enhancing opportunities for students with an intellectual disability to participate in Higher Education.€3 million in funding has been provided for Universal Design measures under Path 4 Phase 1: Supporting Universal Design. A number of projects have been funded and are currently underway, their aim is to improve accessibility for all students.