Taoiseach Simon Harris says Dublin willing to help fund Magee medical places
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00:00 Taoiseach, as you can imagine there are many young constituents in Donegal who go on to
00:04 study in the north. Given its close proximity to home and given the housing shortage in
00:09 Dublin at the moment, at the beginning of this year it was announced that funding would
00:12 be made available for 25 additional medical students for qualifying students in Queens
00:17 from September 2024 and that as part of that arrangement students will pay the 3,000 euro
00:22 fee charged to the Republic with the state covering the rest of the Gislingas. This is
00:26 great news for many students looking to study medicine in Donegal and across the country,
00:30 many of whom will look to come back to the Republic to practice once graduated. I'm asking
00:34 you Taoiseach, will you ensure that this project is extended to the rest of the universities
00:38 in the north such as Ulster University to allow more students to study medicine given
00:43 the severe lack of GPs and the needs that we have here in the south as well? Thank you
00:48 Taoiseach. Thanks Deputy Pringle, yeah look I think it's a great initiative, I think it's
00:51 a great initiative for the island of Ireland, for the north west in particular, for medical
00:54 education and for opportunities for young people. The Minister for Further and Higher
00:58 Education is in Ulster University on the Magee campus in Derry today. We are willing to expand
01:04 this, obviously there has to be, and I'm not suggesting there's not, but there obviously
01:07 needs to be two partners and a willingness to do it, but from a funding point of view
01:10 we see this as win-win in terms of education, medicine and opportunity for young people.