The number of CAO applicants hoping to study veterinary medicine almost tripled this year, while applications for pharmacy, medicine and physiotherapy all saw considerable rises as additional courses and places come on stream.
Figures released by the Central Applications Office (CAO) show a total of 88,817 applications were received by the February 1st deadline this year, up 6.5 per cent from the same period last year.
The figures show a near tripling in the number of applicants listing veterinary medicine courses in their applications, rising by 198 per cent from 902 in 2025 to 2,692 this year.
This coincides with the first intakes to two new veterinary medicine colleges, at South East Technological University and Atlantic Technological University, from September.
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Before their establishment, University College Dublin provided the only degree in veterinary science on the island of Ireland.
Health-related degrees received the highest number of “total mentions” at 91,571, an increase of 22 per cent from last year.
When broken down by specialist groups, pharmacy saw the largest increase at 69 per cent, rising from 2,913 total mentions last year to 4,924 in 2026.
The number of applicants listing medicine degrees rose by 32 per cent, from 14,356 to 19,020.
Physiotherapy courses, meanwhile, saw a 26 per cent increase in total mentions, alongside rises for nursing and midwifery (13 per cent) and dentistry (11 per cent).
Minister for Higher Education James Lawless previously said there would more than 1,100 new places in health-related courses this year, including medicine, pharmacy, nursing and dentistry.
Separately, amid continuing, intense housing demand and significant infrastructure projects in the pipeline, architecture and construction-related courses saw a 12 per cent increase in the number of total mentions, rising to 18,309.
There was also a 10 per cent rise in total mentions of engineering programmes to 30,789.
Arts degrees saw a 9 per cent rise in the number of total mentions this year, standing at 44,857.
Such degrees at Trinity College Dublin saw the largest increase in applications at 6.5 per cent, with the growth in applications outpacing that of the university’s health sciences courses (3.4 per cent) and its science, technology, engineering and maths courses (Stem) (0.5 per cent).
Among the arts programmes to see significant rises in first preference applications were Middle Eastern, Jewish and Islamic civilisations (67 per cent) law and German (41 per cent), and film (47 per cent).
Trinity’s vice-provost and chief academic officer, Orla Sheils, noted the “inherent value of an arts degree has been questioned in recent weeks”.
The Irish Times previously reported the University of Galway is proposing a “transformation” of its arts provision due to a downward trend in popularity.
“In an era when AI’s power is increasing, an arts degree can hone the human skills that no machine can replicate,” Sheils said.
