Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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1130. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated average cost to the State of training a medical student and a nursing student to graduation; and to itemise these costs by component, undergraduate education, clinical placement funding, intern training, postgraduate specialist training, and any State subsidy to hospital training sites, in each of the past ten years. [61186/25]

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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1131. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the total annual public expenditure on training medical, nursing, and midwifery students in Ireland, including grants to higher education institutions and payments to the HSE for clinical placements, for each year since 2010 to date in 2025. [61187/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1130 and 1131 together.

Higher Education Institutions are autonomous institutions responsible for their own academic affairs including the development of relevant curriculum and student numbers on individual courses.

Institutions receive funding from a variety of sources, including state grants, competitive funding, tuition fees, and commercial/private income streams. Their various income streams contribute to the expenditure associated with the full range of institutional activities. Meeting the costs of provision is a matter for the respective institution within the context of its overall operating budget.

In relation to recurrent funding supports, the provision of higher education funding from the State, on an annual basis, is part of overall expenditure management and budgetary policy of Government. Financial support is provided to the higher education sector through a variety of means including direct recurrent grants.

Investment in Higher Education is not specifically allocated against a “per student” metric. As such is it not possible to attribute a specific cost for the training of specific student cohorts such as nursing or medical students.

The internal disbursement of the grant funding, including allocations across faculties or schools within an institution, is a matter for the institution to determine.