More than 600 additional college places will come on stream this September, according to Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.
The places are concentrated in healthcare, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy and other key courses.
A proportion of the places will be in Northern Ireland but ringfenced for students coming from the Republic and include 200 places in nursing.
September will also see the introduction of Post-Leaving Certificate courses to train speech and language therapist assistants in five Education and Training Boards, with an estimated 120 students expected to avail of these programmes.
The development is good news for CAO applicants and may lead to an easing of pressure on points for some courses.
Fifty places will be made available for Republic of Ireland applicants in therapy disciplines in Ulster University - 20 places in occupational therapy and 20 in physiotherapy, and 10 places in speech and language therapy.
Minister Harris said increasing the workforce "is absolutely essential to addressing demands in the healthcare system and to improving access to the services people rely on".
He said the further and higher education sector "has a critical role to play in ensuring that our healthcare services have the staff they need to deliver the care that people need, and these places are an important step in that direction."
The minister added that later this year a process would begin to increase places in therapy disciplines on a more sustainable basis.
Minister Donnelly said he was seeking to double the number of undergraduate training places across medicine, nursing and midwifery and the health and social care professions.
The speech and language assistant PLC courses will be available at Cavan Institute, three further education colleges in Dublin, and at the Dunboyne and Waterford Colleges of Further Education.
A total of 415 additional places will be created in higher education institutions in the State.
This includes 208 additional places in nursing and midwifery and comes on top of substantial expansion in nursing in recent years. The figures includes an additional 60 places in medicine, which were previously announced as part of a multi-annual expansion.
Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman said increasing the supply of therapists was the best way of ensuring that the Health Service Executive could deliver much-needed interventions for children and cut the waiting lists for assessments of need.
