Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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121. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the actions he has taken to increase funding and resources for disability supports including mental health supports in third level institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2091/24]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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An inclusive higher education system is a national and European priority. Inclusion is one of the six strategic goals set out in my Department’s Statement of Strategy and our National Access Plan identifies students with a disability including students with an intellectual disability as a group who are underrepresented in higher education.

Since the launch of the plan I have taken a number of measures to increase supports for students with a disability in higher education including:-

• The average annual allocation of the Fund for Students with a Disability funding to the higher education sector is in the region of €7.6 million. I have increased the fund for 2024 by 5% to over €8 million.
• Universal Design measures have been progressed with 19 institutions receiving a total of €3m in funding in 2022 to support projects.
• A call for proposals to enhance provision for students with an intellectual disability has recently closed and I will be announcing the details of successful projects in the next number of weeks.
• A new part time fees scheme will be introduced from September 2024 to provide fee support to eligible part-time students attending specified publicly funded undergraduate courses leading to a major award. This is an important new initiative which will open the doors of higher education to many groups who could not participate in full-time programmes.

• Mental Health and Well-being funding supports
• Healthy Campus Charter and Framework
• Student and Learner Wellbeing and Engagement Working Group
• National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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In July, 2023, Minister Donnelly and I announced over 400 additional permanent places across Health and Social Care Profession programmes from September 2023. This included five places on the Radiation Therapy programme in Trinity College Dublin

I met with Deputy Burke and representatives from the Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork Radiation Therapy programme as well as Radiation Therapy Professionals on 25th October 2023.

The proposal received from Trinity College Dublin at that meeting has been passed to the Department of Health who are reviewing it. The Department of Health have previously informed DFHERIS that the infrastructure the HSE are putting in place in the context of the National Service Plan 2023 will support radiation therapy along with other disciplines and there is an allocation for additional tutor posts for radiation therapy which will support student placement.

The Chief HSCP officer is in regular communication with the national HSCP lead and understands that practice tutor posts for radiation therapists have been submitted for funding as part of an overall process to improve access to clinical placements for all HSCPs.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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123. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the up-to-date position regarding the development of a training centre of excellence on a site (details supplied) in Killarney, County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2061/24]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this question. The Deputy will be aware that Kerry ETB has been working with and supported by SOLAS in developing their preliminary business case proposal for Killarney under the College of the Future Major Projects fund for the last number of months. The development of a robust Preliminary Business Case (PBC) is fundamental to the requirements of the Infrastructure Guidelines (Formerly known as the Public Spending Code guidelines).

This is a really exciting project for Kerry. This is taking a derelict site and re-purposing and transforming it into a state-of-the-art campus. The ambition for the centre is significant. The proposal looks at developing the site into a Specialist Centre of Skills Development in Hospitality Training, while supporting Renewable Energy and Sustainable Green Technologies.

Completed preliminary business cases including that of Kerry ETB were submitted to SOLAS by the deadline of last Friday, the 12th of January. These business cases will shortly begin to be evaluated under criteria such as value for money, affordability and strategic policy and priority alignment, in line with the requirements of the infrastructure guidelines, and ETBs will be informed of the outcome of this evaluation process once it is completed.

Capital investment in the FET Sector remains a key priority for me and for my department and I recognise the importance of developing infrastructure to support the FET sector to provide high quality campuses for our learners and teaching staff.