My Department has responsibility for immigration-related matters, including the entry and residence conditions of non-EEA students. My Department engages with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, among other key sectorial stakeholders, in this area.
A Stamp 2 immigration permission is granted to all international non-EEA students regardless of whether they are undertaking an English language course or a third level programme. For a person to be granted a Stamp 2 permission, the course they are enrolled in must be listed on the Interim List of Eligible Programmes (ILEP) which is available on the Immigration Service Delivery website.
While my Department can report on the number of individuals registered and renewed by Stamp category, such as Stamp 2 for study, they are unable to sub-categorise stamp categories further, such as level of education under which a Stamp was granted. Therefore, it is not possible to report on the number of students with an immigration permission that have progressed to higher education in Ireland in the past two years.