Rose Conway-Walsh Warns of Capped Nursing Places and Privatisation

I think this is a very useful session and I suppose I want to frame it in the way that we want this legislation to do what it needs to do. We welcome it, but we need to work together. We need collaboration and inclusiveness in terms of addressing what we need to address. We need joined up thinking and I take it, and Tim, what you were saying around the access, equality of access. That's basically what we all want. And you see, this is why then when I see things like the nursing situation, we really need to have this joined up. We can't have this legislation and then parked over here to be doing this. So when we look at, say, last year, over 5,000 leave and cert students put nursing or midwifery as their first preference on CAO. And then we see that the numbers are capped and have been capped since 2017, that they're capped at 1,819. Now we have the new private course starting on the 20th of July, where the cost is $7,995 annually. So you can see where I'm getting at in terms of the whole cohort there, that the ones that will be plucked out from it are the ones that can afford it. And we should not be in that situation where we're capping and we're not funding the places within the colleges themselves. So I would just ask for that to be looked at in the round in terms of the quotas and the privatisation that's creeping in there. I want to ask you, Tanya, around the timeline for this in how you see it, because as well, I'm very mindful that we'll have castles back. We were supposed to have castles back from Europe. You know, we were certainly supposed to have it in March. We're now in July. Now we're told it's autumn. I know it's back in the department now. But I think it's important that we don't ignore the chronic underfunding as well that needs to absolutely needs to underpin what we're trying to achieve here across the board. So maybe just answer the timeline to me and maybe just in terms of public, private, capping, equality of access, that would be good. Thanks. Thanks for letting me in again, Tanya. Yes, Deputy, just with regard to the funding, yes, you're right. The report is back. The final deliverable is back. The department has commenced its examination of that report, analysis, findings and conclusions and recommendations. And they're examining that in order to develop proposals for government to seek to meet the commitment contained in its statement of strategy. So once that's concluded, the report will be submitted to government for consideration. It would be, Tanya, when would you see that would be kind of within a month or so of, I mean, would it be? I don't, Deputy, I don't have an exact timeline on that. I just know the examination is underway, but I can definitely, if I can assist, I will get a timeline for you from colleagues on that. And that will feed in. And then just to say, then the Minister sets the policy on funding, the HEA, as we know, then distributes the funding. The legislation won't provide for quotas, but will aim to work with institutions. And I think that addresses most of your questions with that, with regard to that. And then we've said about the access plan that's there as well. And there's a lot of strengthening in the scheme for that. And to just pick up on your point there by working together to get a fit for purpose piece of legislation that is very much in the forefront of our mind. Hence the emphasis on consultation and engagement to date on that to get, to assure you of that fitness for purpose. And just the timeline maybe on the legislation itself. Yes, the Minister, the timelines for that is, the plan is hopefully for enactment by the end of the year. So once we have the outcome of the pre-legislative scrutiny process, we can feed that in to the drafting process. And we're hoping by the end of the year to have it enacted. That's the ambition level. So if councils agree before then, that's great. Thanks. I will get to the timelines on that. Thank you.