Six new university courses have been announced in the areas of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry around the country.
The programmes, which are being launched following recommendations from the Higher Education Authority, are aimed at increasing the number of healthcare places at third level.
The courses include a new Bachelor of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, (RCSI) with the college to provide 20 new dentistry places per year for Irish and European Economic Area students from 2025 onwards.
New pharmacy programmes will be made available by the Atlantic Technological University, the South East Technological University and the University of Galway.
The move is expected to double the number of pharmacy training programmes and, at full roll out, the colleges will provide more than 150 additional pharmacy graduates per year.
The University of Galway will also introduce a Rural and Remote Graduate Entry Medicine Stream, which is aimed at addressing the shortage of general practitioners in rural Ireland.
At full roll out, the university is set to provide 48 additional medicine places per year.
And as part of the announcement, the University of Limerick will launch a direct-entry medicine programme.
Around €130 million in funding from the National Training Fund has been allocated to support the growth of what has been described as "key healthcare disciplines".
It is hoped the move will help in "addressing critical workforce shortages and enhancing healthcare eduation across the country".
A spokesperson for the Department of Further and Higher Education said it was expected that the RCSI dentistry and the pharmacy courses will start in 2025 and the UL and Galway courses from 2026.
As yet, there is no timeline for the other courses.
The Minister for Further and Higher Education said he believes the move represents "a landmark day" in the future of higher education and healthcare delivery in Ireland.
Patrick O'Donovan said what has been announced will be "transformative" in the delivery of medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry.
"Not only are we announcing an expansion of places, we are also announcing whole new colleges," he said.
Mr O'Donovan said there will be new colleges of pharmacy in Waterford and Sligo, a new college of regional and rural medicine and a new college of pharmacy in Galway, and a new college of medicine in Limerick, as well as a new college of denistry in Dublin.
He said he believes the homegrown indigenous Irish pharmaceutical sector, healthcare sector and foreign indirect investment sector will "see this as a massive vote of confidence" into regional and rural areas.
"Today, we have given a very clear indication and direction of travel as to where we want to take out higher education institutes," he said.
"Before, it was the preserve of a number of universities where you could study medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and veterinary, and we have changed that today and we have changed it in a really positive way," he added.
Mr O'Donovan said: "Since I became Minister, we have put colleges of veterinary in regional and rural Ireland and now we are putting colleges of pharmacy and colleges of medicine into regional and rural Ireland and that has not be done to this scale since the foundation of the state."
He said the move goes to the ethos of the programme for government that "all roads don't necessarily have to lead to Dublin and you don't have to go to Dublin for everything".
The Chief Executive of the HEA said the announcement "demonstrates the ability of the higher education and research system to respond swiftly and effectively to evolving national priorities and skills needs".
Dr Alan Wall said the new programmes at ATU, SETU, RCSI, University of Galway and the University of Limerick are "highly innovative in their design and methods of delivery, drawing on international best practice to provide additional opportunities for students to study pharmacy, dentistry and medicine in courses that are highly attuned to institutions’ regions and communities and responsive to national healthcare challenges".
"These programmes will complement existing high-quality provision in Dentistry, Medicine, and Pharmacy, strengthening the overall capacity of the system to meet Ireland’s healthcare training needs into the future," he added.
