Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)
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599. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills whether his Department have investigated the costs associated with providing free open access to journal articles to students; if he will share these costs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22774/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) 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. They are responsible for their own administrative and academic affairs.

Recurrent grant funding is allocated to these institutions either through the HEA, which disburses funding on behalf of my Department, or via direct grants from my Department to certain institutions. As autonomous entities, investigating the costs associated with providing free open access to journal articles to students is a matter for each individual institution, my Department has no role in gathering information on these costs centrally.

It is my understanding that many Irish HEIs subscribe to major academic databases and journal publishers, and that students can login and freely access a variety of journal articles online through their respective institutional library systems.