Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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2724. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of students from the Republic of Ireland who enrolled in undergraduate allied health professional courses, such as radiography, radiation therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, dietetics, orthotics, and nursing, in the Britain and the north of Ireland, for each of the past ten years; and his views on the impact of Brexit on the fees payable by Irish students studying in Britain and the north of Ireland, and the effect this has had on numbers studying there. [46420/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has sought this data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in the UK. Allowing for variation in programme titles, the attached tables (number of domiciled students from Ireland in Northern Ireland universities and number of domiciled students from Ireland in Rest of UK (England, Scotland and Wales) universities) provides the data.

In July 2021, a Memorandum of Understanding on Education Principles under the Common Travel Area was signed by my predecessor, the Minster for Education and the Secretary of State for Education in the UK. This provided, inter alia, that Irish citizens would be treated for fees purposes on the same basis as home students across the UK. The only exception to this was Scotland, where, for UK legal compliance, Irish students were not longer eligible for free fees.

The most recent data from HESA confirms that there are variations in the the number of Irish students studying across the Devolved Administrations over the past six years with numbers in Northern Ireland increasing, (from 2,245 in 2018/ 2019 to 3,355 in 2023/ 2024) while those in Scotland have decreased (1,970 in 2018/ 2019 to 1,530 in 2023/ 2024).

Notwithstanding these variations, the overall numbers of Irish students studying in the UK has been relatively stable averaging at 9,690 per annum since 2018/ 2019.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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2725. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of undergraduate students studying in Irish universities in allied health professional courses (such as radiography, radiation therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, dietetics, and nursing, in each of the past ten years; and the number of each that are Irish citizens, the number that are EU citizens and the number that are from out side the EU. [46421/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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The information requested by the Deputy is contained in the attached spreadsheet. The data was sourced from the Higher Education Authority Student Records System and is the most recent available. The Deputy should note that, in line with good practice regarding statistical confidentiality, all numbers are rounded to the nearest five. The Student Records System does not record citizenship but does record Domicile - i.e. the student's country of permanent residence of at least three of the five years preceding enrolment.