I propose to take Questions Nos. 678, 679, 680 and 681 together.
The Programme for Government contains a commitment to publish a National Migration and Integration Strategy detailing how the Government intends to meet the demands and opportunities facing Ireland’s society and economy over the next decade. My Department is currently working with other Government Departments to develop this strategy with the aim to publish it in 2026.
As part of this strategic approach, I am reviewing the area of student permissions, including with regard to English Language students. This work is aimed at ensuring that the system remains robust and rules-based, supports high-quality education providers, and continues to offer a positive experience for genuine students coming to Ireland.
International students from outside the EU/EEA are granted a residence permission on Stamp 2 conditions where they have enrolled on, and commenced a course listed on the Interim List of Eligible Programmes (ILEP), or eligible programmes offered by providers with authorisation to use the new TrustEd Education mark awarded by the Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI).
All education providers listed on the ILEP are required to maintain attendance records and this is a key criterion under ILEP. They must have systems in place for the recording of student attendance and clearly outline the rules on punctuality and the related penalties. Such records must be available for inspection by, or submission to, the Immigration Service Delivery (ISD) of my Department at any time.
Any education provider may be subject to unannounced inspections, on-line monitoring, or random spot checks to ensure its compliance with ILEP criteria, and this includes the maintenance of records and reports. These may be requested by ISD at any time and failure to do so can result in the removal of a provider from the ILEP. If a student is expelled, withdraws, or fails to attend a course of education, an ILEP provider is required to notify ISD.
In August 2025, my Department communicated with all ILEP listed English Language providers seeking their formal agreement in respect of data sharing for the purpose of processing student immigration residence permissions. All providers intending to recruit non-EEA national students responded positively.
Providers are required to submit template information on a weekly basis to ISD. This includes data on enrolments, attendance rates and expulsions. All information received from providers is stored on my Department's operating system. In the event that a student is not attending a course of study, or is expelled, ISD will investigate each individual case accordingly.
Once the ILEP is discontinued, only education providers granted authorisation to use the TrustEd Ireland mark provided by QQI will be eligible to recruit non-EU/EEA students to English language programmes, foundation programmes and higher education programmes leading to awards within the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ).
The table below details the number of people granted a student immigration residence permission from 2020 to 2024. Figures for 2025 will be available in early 2026.
|
Year
|
Number of Stamp 2 Registrations
|
|
2020
|
30,980
|
|
2021
|
28,717
|
|
2022
|
52,845
|
|
2023
|
60,882
|
|
2024
|
60,901
|
* Figures are correct at time of issue, however, all statistics may be subject to data cleansing
As referenced in previous Parliamentary Questions, these figures reflect the people, or unique individuals, required to register or renew their immigration permission in a calendar year. Most renewals are annual, however, there may be students that were required to register/renew multiple times in the same calendar year, such as English Language students. Therefore, these numbers per year should not be summed to an overall total but rather reflect the number of unique individuals required to register or renew in that calendar year.
Information regarding the educational institution a person is attending, as well as the number of times they register in a particular year, is recorded on each individual person’s file. To desegregate this data in the detailed manner requested by the Deputy would require the manual examination of thousands of registrations. Such an examination would require a disproportionate amount of time to compile and would deflect resources from processing the very significant annual number of applications for first-time registration and immigration permission renewals.
