The Programme for Government commits to expanding healthcare education and training places, aligned with national workforce planning, to address staffing shortages across the health, disability and wider social care system. In that context, the Government has secured a €28.5 million investment in 2026 to support delivery of over 1,100 additional healthcare training places annually over the next three years, including 161 additional pharmacy places.
This expansion represents one of the largest coordinated increases in healthcare education capacity ever undertaken by the State and is being delivered through a cross-Government approach involving my Department, the Higher Education Authority and the Department of Health.
Higher education institutions are autonomous bodies in respect of academic provision, within the parameters of national policy, regulatory requirements and available funding. Recent expansion in pharmacy education has focused on strengthening regional provision, including the introduction of new pharmacy programmes at the University of Galway and Atlantic Technological University in 2025, and a further programme at South East Technological University commencing in 2026, alongside continued delivery by existing providers.
Clinical placement capacity is a critical consideration in pharmacy education. Experiential learning placements for integrated pharmacy programmes are coordinated nationally through APPEL – the Affiliation for Pharmacy Practice Experiential Learning, which currently manages placements for programmes at University College Cork, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Trinity College Dublin. The recently accredited programmes at ATU, SETU and the University of Galway have indicated their intention to apply for inclusion in the APPEL consortium, supporting a coordinated national approach to placement provision.
Responsibility for the organisation and availability of placement settings within the health service lies primarily with the Department of Health and the HSE. A national clinical placement mapping exercise, undertaken by the Higher Education Authority in collaboration with institutions, is intended to support more strategic, regionally informed planning for future expansion.
In relation to the specific information requested by the Deputy for the last four years, details on:
• the total number of undergraduate physiotherapy places by institution,
• the allocation of those places between Irish/EU and non-EU students,
have been compiled from data provided by the Higher Education Authority in tabular format.
For Irish and EU students studying undergraduate pharmacy in Ireland, the programmes at University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland are all eligible under the Free Fees Initiative. This means the State pays the full tuition cost, and students are required to pay only the standard student contribution, currently €2,500 per annum, along with any mandatory institutional levies.
In some cases, additional levies may apply, including charges related to student services, facilities or clinical placement administration. These levies are set and administered by the higher education institutions and can vary across programmes and years of study. While overall costs may increase in later years of integrated pharmacy programmes due to the intensity of clinical placement and professional training requirements, Irish and EU students are not charged full economic fees. Any future decisions on the distribution of additional pharmacy places will be considered through the Higher Education Authority-led process, informed by workforce planning data, regulatory requirements and sustainable placement capacity.
