As the Deputy knows, the student supports I introduced in the most recent budget targeted, in particular, those students who have to travel extra distances. They are categorised as being "non-adjacent". All four bands of non-adjacent maintenance grants were increased by between €200 and €400 to reflect the additional costs for those commuting those distances.
The Deputy mentioned accommodation, and rightly so. I am …
TDs / James Lawless
James Lawless
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science
Portrait: © Houses of the Oireachtas (Oireachtas (Open Data) PSI Licence) · source file
30
questions asked
Oral and written, to government departments
114,588
words spoken in the chamber
114,547 as a minister, 41 as a TD
360
votes recorded
Each Yes, No or Abstained in a recorded vote
19
topics asked about
Across 11 departments
From the Dáil chamber only: committee meetings are not in this archive.
What they ask about
The subject headings the Oireachtas filed their questions under.
Who they ask
The departments their questions were addressed to.
Month by month
Low months are usually recesses, when the Dáil does not sit. The archive runs to 22 October 2026.
Questions asked 30 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Contributions to debates 440 in all
Dec 2024Oct 2026
Show as a table
| Month | Questions | Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| January 2025 | 13 | 2 |
| February 2025 | 8 | 9 |
| March 2025 | 3 | 54 |
| April 2025 | 0 | 15 |
| May 2025 | 0 | 35 |
| June 2025 | 0 | 9 |
| July 2025 | 2 | 60 |
| August 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| October 2025 | 0 | 44 |
| November 2025 | 0 | 1 |
| December 2025 | 0 | 44 |
| January 2026 | 0 | 40 |
| February 2026 | 1 | 1 |
| March 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| April 2026 | 2 | 39 |
| May 2026 | 0 | 42 |
| June 2026 | 0 | 1 |
| July 2026 | 0 | 40 |
| August 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| September 2026 | 1 | 0 |
| October 2026 | 0 | 4 |
Debates they spoke in most
Plus 379 contributions in the regular slots, such as Leaders' Questions and Priority Questions. Speech from the chair is not counted.
Asked about similar topics
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Party, constituency and offices
- constituency Kildare North 29 November 2024 to now
- party Fianna Fáil 29 November 2024 to now
- office Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science 23 January 2025 to now
We are doing that. This week or next week, we will pass the Finance Bill through the Houses to give effect to those measures we have already decided, as a Government, to take. We are doing exactly as the Deputy suggests. We are providing further subsidies on the cost of travel to students in two ways, namely, through direct intervention at the petrol pumps for those students who travel by car and motorised transport …
I thank the Deputy for his ongoing interest in this matter and all matters pertaining to higher education. As he knows, the programme for Government addresses the cost of college in a balanced way. It does so deliberately by combining universal and targeted measures. The programme for Government commits to incrementally reducing student contribution fees as well as increasing SUSI grants; providing targeted support m…
The Deputy makes the point well. I will not comment on collective Cabinet decisions, but I hear what the Deputy said. It is very fair. For my part, I attend to pursue a multitude of options to further support students. These include making progress on fees but also a number of other options in areas such as maintenance grants, funding for students with disabilities, mental health supports, the student assistance fund…
I assure the Deputy and the House that I will make the case in the budget negotiations to secure the maximum possible package for my Department for the benefit of students, apprentices, researchers and all the people within and for all the good reasons the Deputy articulates.
I expect the cost of college paper to be available in June or early summer, and certainly it will be with us before the summer break. It has b…
It is a priority of mine to make higher education more accessible, as I have been saying in reply to earlier questions. Part of this is the cost of accommodation, the cost of putting a roof over everyone's head, and making sure that the students are ideally as close to their college as possible. I firmly believe that the student experience and the college experience necessitates, and is enhanced by, being proximate t…
I have indeed sat down with the Minister for housing. We had a number of good interactions over the past year, and particularly when he announced his intention to bring forward the reform of the rent pressure zones and to legislate for that. We immediately engaged on that and we spent a long time working out the details of how that would affect students. One of the outputs of that is the special protection regulation…
I have ongoing engagement with the Minister for housing and we have had a very structured and productive engagement, which led to the student exemption and the protection window of three years being imposed in the new rental protection Acts. I hear the issue that the Deputy raises. I have written directly to one or two institutions where I was made aware of this practice. I advised them that I did not feel this was i…
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta McGettigan. Aithníonn mo Roinn an ról tábhachtach atá ag earnáil an oideachais threasaigh maidir le cur chun cinn agus cothabháil na Gaeilge. Tá réimse cúrsaí ar fáil do mhic léinn trí mheán na Gaeilge ar fud na hearnála treasaí. Is iad na hinstitiúidí féin a dhéanann na cinntí sin i gcomhréir lena neamhspleáchas acadúil. Léiríonn anailís a rinne an tÚdarás um Ard-Oideachas le déanaí …
Níor cheart go mbeadh imní ar an Teachta faoina cuid Gaeilge, táimse ag foghlaim chomh maith. Maith thú as an bhfoghlaim. We will learn together. It is commendable when anyone attempts it. To meet the target, the goal is to have a workforce capable of speaking at least partly as Gaelige, but ideally 20% would have a strong ability and competency. A wide range of courses is available already. Some are fully in Irish, …
I know Conradh na Gaeilge well. I will be meeting its representatives in the near future to discuss their submissions and requests. I am very supportive and I hope we can do as much as we can for them. I mentioned some of the actions we are taking. There are a couple of specific actions we are taking to meet the target. We are working with the Department of Education and Youth to examine the transition of students fr…
I worked all the way through second level and third level and afterwards. Then I ended up studying while I was working, so I did it both ways round. I totally appreciate the industriousness and the necessity in many cases for students to work through their education. How we have it structured is that under the SUSI grant scheme, income from employment that represents holiday earnings outside of term time is calculate…
They do not need to leave Kerry any more at all, because we have a fine university in Tralee with MTU. I visited it recently with the Minister, Deputy Foley, and Deputy Cahill and we saw it in action. Professor Maggie Cusack and the then chairperson, Jimmy Deenihan, welcomed us to the facility. The university is providing world-class services. If students do want to leave Kerry, however, there are course options avai…
As I said at the outset, I worked all through college at a variety of things through weekends, evenings in some cases, and all through my summers and, indeed, often Christmas and Easter holidays as well. I would make the point to the Deputy that there is nothing stopping students from doing that. Students can work, and they can choose. It equates roughly to Christmas holidays, Easter holidays and summer holidays. How…
I thank the Deputy very much. He mentioned AI and skills shortages and understanding the new trends that are emerging in higher education and across training our graduates and, indeed, our apprentices. That is an absolute priority for me and the Department. We are doing a lot of work on skills and identifying skills needs and skills gaps, working through SOLAS, the National Skills Council, the expert group on future …
The Deputy is exactly right. One of the interesting outputs of the inaugural skills round-table I held about six weeks, which had the accommodation sectors at it, was that there was a common theme. Regardless of semiconductors, biosciences, pharmaceuticals or construction, there was a common theme. They said they want to be able to hire graduates, trainees and skilled workers who have broader skills, such as communic…
There are a couple of things. I recently launched a website called aiready.ie. The Deputy might have tried it out. I urge anyone who has not already to do so. That website is specifically targeted at short AI familiarity skills. It is not necessarily building up to expert user level but building up an awareness of AI and how it works - how it can be used, for example, in a small business, for personal use, planning a…
I am aware of the Deputy's interest in this. I am pleased to be able to advise the Deputy that I have met the presidents of both UCC and MTU on a number of occasions. I have also visited both institutions on a number of occasions and, indeed, I will do so again this week.
I am very aware of how the supply and affordability of accommodation is impacting students in Cork and more generally across the country. That is …
I totally agree with the Deputy. We need to see significant progress and we need to see it soon.
On the theme of progress, we saw 206 beds with a commencement notice issued only last month in Cork. There are 3,000 around the country since I launched the strategy approximately six weeks ago. Approximately 206 of those are in Cork, and they are badly needed. There are another 1,700 beds in Cork with planning granted w…
I am conscious of this and I have met all the technological universities, TUs, on it. It is a programme for Government commitment and it is one I have given effect to through the student accommodation strategy because the strategy includes provision for nomination agreements. Nomination agreements are technical arrangements, but they allow the technological university to take on a contingent liability upon its balanc…
As the Deputy will be aware, under legislation, the Irish higher education institutions are autonomous in their decisions and the processes they follow in relation to admissions, and rightly so. They operate without political influence in terms of their admission criteria and enrolment.
Both public and private institutions, all use the CAO, which is well understood, to centrally process the applications for most und…
I am just clarifying. The Deputy's question asked about the courses in which maximum leaving certificate points did not guarantee admission due to demand and he has moved on now to high-points courses. The difference between maximum and high-points is that it is a meritocracy. Rightly or wrongly, the CAO system awards courses on the basis of points. A student had maximum points and missed out on a place, which arose …
Not to my knowledge. My Department does not collect data on the number of international students or the share of places offered through the CAO on a course-by-course basis. That falls under the remit of the individual autonomous higher education institutions and they determine that annually. The Deputy may wish to correspond with them to make his own inquiries. I reiterate my point because the scenario he is depictin…
In actual fact I do not have the information.
It is because these are autonomous institutions that manage their own course and manage their own systems within it. The Deputy is welcome to correspond with them, if he has not done so already, to see what information he can derive. Every student who wanted a course, bar one, got into a course. In the latest CAO round, there was one student in one course in entire country. It is regrettable and I would prefer if no …