Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The National Review of State Supports for PhD Researchers is the first time that the issue of state supports for this group has been considered holistically. In the first report from this Review which was published in June 2023, the Co-Chairs made an independent recommendation for an increase towards an optimum stipend level of €25,000, subject to funding availability.

Under Budget 2024, I secured funding to increase the PhD stipends provided by the competitive research funding agencies under my Department’s remit, i.e. Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council (IRC). The additional funding means that these stipends can be increased from €19,000 to €22,000 per student per annum.

This builds on the increase that I secured in Budget 2023 and my officials and I will continue to engage with the budgetary processes in order to continue our progress on this issue.

For those PhD students in receipt of stipends from national competitive funding agencies under the remit of other Government Departments, the level of stipend awarded and the timeline of its payment are at the discretion of that funder and their parent Department.

With regard to SFI and IRC PhD stipend awardees, the increases to €22,000 became effective from 1st January 2024, with the associated funds in the process of being transferred from the agencies to each relevant higher education institution which is then administering the payment to their students.