Eoghan Kenny details expansion of health and veterinary student places

In relation to the 2.8 million for the 300 additional student places for health and social care disciplines, does the department have a breakdown in relation to those 300 places, like in relation to which courses they will be? I'll just cut that for you now, Debby. That's fine. Okay, yep, so we have largely a high level, we have a breakdown, so part of this is a, has the objective of meeting our disability challenge to assist in providing a higher number of therapists and professionals that can assist with health and disability needs, so across that we have 463 additional places in health and social care disciplines, such as therapies, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social language therapy, dietetics, radiography, radiation therapy, all those, will be of great assistance there. We also have 20 additional places in Irish medical schools in 2026, which brings up to 200 new places created in the last three years. There are also new programs coming stream in pharmacy, I know Deputy Connolly, your home university, is taking on board in Galway, the pharmacy course. Graduate medicine course, absolutely, with the focus on rural medicine, which I think is really innovative, because I've seen, certainly myself, rural GPs, there's a challenge in meeting the provision of those. So the courses, the two courses in Galway, pharmacy and graduate medicine, with the focus on rural, are very, very welcome. There's a dentistry, 35 places, I visited the RCSI recently, and sort of firsthand the new equipment and facilities that are being provided, and those are being entered into the system as soon as possible, and will also provide public services as well as private, so I think that's, again, badly needed. Are all of those places, are they for CEO applicants, or are they for... So it depends what they are, so the graduate ones would be somewhat differently, but the rest of them, yeah, would be assessed through the CEO, I think, yeah. There's also, there's additional veterinary places as well, so we have 80 additional veterinary places, including both in ATU and SCTU, and we have 151, I mentioned the pharmacy places, and the new medical programs, yeah. So there's a number of places... I think that's actually important to mention as well, like, the significant amount of places that are opening, in particular, what you would, we would normally have considered rural colleges as such, like, or now rural universities. Like, that's extremely to be welcomed, I think, you know, for, like, even if I was an outsider, like, that would be extremely welcome. I think looking at it, it would be, you know, number one, it's beneficial to the colleges, but number two, it's also very beneficial to the communities or the cities where the colleges or universities are located. So that's positive. Is it possible for the department to outline, or is it, you know, perhaps for the colleges, to be able to outline, I suppose, specifically, maybe in tabular form, the number of different places? So, like, you know, you'd mentioned there in relation to, you know, 20 in the Irish medical schools, you know, a number, a significant number in relation to different therapies. Is it possible to get, like, a breakdown of, like, how many occupational therapies, placements, how many speech and language therapy placements, you know, that's probably a ream of work for your department? You know, I'm sure we can do that. I'm actually taking PQs, I think, on the 2nd, 3rd of December, if you want to put in a PQ in it, but we can get the information to you either way, you know, make sure you get it, but it might be an efficient way to organise it, but we can certainly do that. And are those new places, are they for academic year 26, 27? Some of them actually already started, so in some cases, so the likes of Nursing Minutes started in September, I launched the programme, they're already up and running. They weren't actually active to the CO because they came on stream mid-summer, and the CO process had already started, so we launched the new course actually ahead of time. There's a couple like that, but the majority will be up and running for September 26. And just in relation also to that as well, the 13.6 allocation towards the SUSE and Student Support Scheme, is that for academic year 26, 27, or has that actually been allocated 25, 26? It's actually 25, 26. Okay, so like the increase in the threshold, for example, would have been available for students who entered college in September 25. So this is the increase in grant thresholds? Yeah. So that's, sorry, the increase in, so the grant thresholds increased to $115,000 in this year, and increased to $120,000 next year. The student contribution fee discount is effective immediately, and that's applied through a sub-mentary year as well, so that comes into effect. So for students who pay in instalments, they get the benefit of in the second instalment, so the January instalment probably, or they can do have a rebate, you know, if they're paid the full at the start. So most of the measures do kick in for the current year, but some of the thresholds, et cetera, are part of Budget 26, so they're coming to effect for next September. Okay, very good. And then just in relation to the $111 million for public sector pay and pension costs, do we have a breakdown of what pay deals they are in relation to? It's the 10% supply to all public sector staff. Is that a question? Okay, so as it's broken down, the $111 has arrived at across two heads, there's a $66.1 million, and there's a further $39.7 million. The $66.1 is public sector pay costs from the building momentum pay deal, and also the public-only consortium contracts in the higher education sector, because we would have a number of medics, et cetera, involved in the universities, and some of them would fall to us in terms of some of the medical skills and so forth. And that's $66.1 million for those building momentum pay deal, and then a further $39.7 million has been allocated for in-year pension obligations. So, like, I suppose the department really had no choice in terms of allocating that money. Well, we packed us on Cervanta, you pay your debts. No, the guard pocket, that's the money. Thank you. It's a pity. Yeah, well, I suppose it's, I mean, it's, it was a pay deal that was entered into, so, you know, it's critical that we would, we would see it. You couldn't say that we caused it. Yeah, not true. Yeah, yeah. You and your man, you should talk to the unions. I definitely didn't cause it. Yeah. I know, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking.