Double college places for therapy and health professionals

What this means

• This is a government commitment to double the number of college places for speech and language therapists and other health and social care professionals in Ireland.[source]
• The commitment comes from the 2025 Programme for Government, first stated on 23 January 2025, and is currently listed as in progress.[source]
• The Department of Further and Higher Education, led by James Lawless, is responsible for delivering this commitment.[source]
• No deadline has been set for when the extra college places must be delivered, which makes it harder for the public to hold the government to account.[source]
• Doubling therapy training places matters because shortages of these professionals affect access to health and social care services across Ireland.[source]

Direct impact (2)

• delivery owned by body
  Department of Further and Higher EducationBody
• delivery owned by officeholder
  James LawlessOfficeholder

Indirect impact (6)

Two-hop relationships traced through the entity above. Useful for spotting downstream knock-on effects.

• delivery owned by officeholder → holds role: Teachta Dála2-hop via james-lawless
  Dáil ÉireannBody
• delivery owned by body → owns statutory mandate2-hop via dept-further
  Policy and funding for further and higher education and researchMandate
• delivery owned by body → holds role: Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science2-hop via dept-further
  Marian HarkinOfficeholder
• delivery owned by body → responsible for commitment2-hop via dept-further
  Reduce the student contribution fee over the term of GovernmentCommitment
• delivery owned by body → responsible for commitment2-hop via dept-further
  Expand apprenticeship and craft training placesCommitment
• delivery owned by officeholder → member of party2-hop via james-lawless
  Fianna FáilParty