2026-07-02

82. Deputy Jen Cummins asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his plans to reduce fees for this coming academic year ahead of the summer break, CAO results and planning for the academic year ahead. [50685/26]

The summer break is ahead. I am sure many leaving certificate students are relaxing on a beach somewhere. Others have got jobs and are planning the year ahead. They are trying to figure out what they are going to do next year, how they are going to do it, where they are going to live, etc. However, what they want to know the most is the level of fees next year and whether it will be reduced.

I thank the Deputy. I wish all students sitting examinations the very best of luck, as well as all those students who are coming to an end of their secondary education, whether they are going to college, further education or elsewhere. Like the Deputy, I will not get much of a break. While this House breaks up in two or three weeks’ time, I will host the European research Ministers the week after that. There are a number of engagements over the summer as part of the Presidency. We will all be busy in our constituencies as well. I hope those in this House get some break, however. It is important to get a chance to recharge. While there are several hundred commitments in the programme for Government, every year, this budgetary measure seems to be the one that gets asked four or five months ahead of the budget process. No more than any Minister in any Department, I simply cannot write the October budget in June or July. However, I will engage with the Ministers in the Department of Finance and the Department of public expenditure on this. A budget Estimate package is being put together in my Department. I am working with my officials to devise it. It will focus on the cost of college and supporting students in every way I can. That can be multifaceted. While it can include fees, it may also include areas such as SUSI, student accommodation, cost of travel, cost of materials and a variety of other things, such as placements. We will be engaging on all of those areas. Certainly, it would be premature for me to make any prediction, good, bad or indifferent, as to the content of my budget package four months out. I will recap on some of the measures I have introduced already because it is important to put them on the record again. In the previous budget, I was pleased to introduce the first ever permeant fee cut for students since free fees were introduced almost 30 years ago with a €500 permanent reduction. It replaced the transient, previous cost-of-living measures, which were only ever temporary and could not be relied upon year to year. The €500 reduction is here to stay. It has benefitted an estimated 108,000 undergraduate students and 14,000 apprentices. That reduction cost €55.4 million this year. It is baked in at the baseline. While I may well do more every year, that reduction is there to stay. It is not temporary like previous measures. As I said, going into the budget ahead, I will again be engaging on fees and many other items. While fees are extremely important for anyone who is liable to pay them, many families and students do not pay them at all because they are subsidised, either in full or in part, by the SUSI grant system.

I know people were happy with the reduction. It is swings and roundabouts as to whether the total level went up or down, but it is what it is. No one in this House can deny the challenges students face. Of course, there are students who do not pay because of SUSI. I appreciate that the threshold for SUSI increased, but there are students stuck in the middle. This is the challenge. We have heard of students sleeping in cars or dropping out because they cannot afford it. Some students are working almost full-time jobs to get through their college course. This is not what we want. As I have said before in this House, the love of learning is why we want students to go to third level, whatever course they decide to do. Students who have just finished the leaving certificate or the leaving certificate applied have been under huge pressure. They need time to figure out who they are and what they want to do and discover what the future might hold for them. However, if they are under massive pressure during this time, they will not be able to do that. That will cause students to leave third level education, which will affect their self-esteem and all the different parts of their life.

I am committed to continue to reduce the cost of college and support measures, including fee reductions, wherever I can. Let us talk to the two cohorts the Deputy mentioned. Students sleeping in cars is an appalling vista. Of course, no student should be in that situation. If those students are paying fees, something has gone badly wrong. The only students who should be paying full fees – they are €2,500 because they have been reduced by €500 on a flat rate – are those students in households with an income above €120,000. If a student has a household income of €120,000 and is sleeping in a car, something is not adding up. I invite any student in that situation to engage with me. Alternatively, they can engage with the Deputy and she can bring it to my attention. We can then see whether something is slipping through the cracks because that should not be happening. When it comes to students working full time, I have increased the student disregard for SUSI eligibility to ensure that students’ part-time work is not counted against them when they are applying for their grants. I have also taken a number of other measures as well as increasing the threshold to €120,000, which brought more and more students into the system. When it comes to the non-adjacent rates, I increased the grants for any student who has to travel 30 km or more to college. There is also more funding for students with disabilities or mental health challenges. A variety of packages have been introduced in the last budget. I hope to do a lot more in the coming budget but four months out is too early to outline exactly what it will contain.

The Minister is right about students sleeping in their car whose parents earn over €100,000. While €100,000 is a huge amount of money, the difficulty and challenge are when there are several children in the family also in college or doing things. That puts pressure on family budgets. We have also spoken in this Chamber about students who are alienated from their parents but cannot access SUSI grants because their income is based on what their parents earn. We need to iron that out. While we are talking about a small number of students in this situation, we need to iron it out completely to have an education system inclusive of everyone. Of course, it is not just young people struggling with fees. Older people who decide to go back to college are also affected. It is a huge strain on them. I am aware of a mother who is under huge pressure. She is a lone parent and has to pay fees on top of paying rent and trying to get her kids through things. It is a challenge. We need to be as supportive as we can. It is not just about those aged 17 and 18 going to college; it is also about the older person who decides to go back to college or go to college for the first time. They need to be supported as much as we can. Broadly, it may work for most, but it does not work for everyone, and we must focus on including everyone.

I agree with what the Deputy said. For the record, it is €120,000 rather than €100,000. I increased the threshold last year. Indeed, the Tánaiste, when he held this portfolio, increased it before me. We have continued to increase that threshold to the level that up to 70% of Irish households now qualify for at least some form of fee subvention. In fact, all benefit from the universal measures but 70% of households are now eligible for other supports. The Deputy mentioned the scenario of multiple children from a household attending college. These are the cases I would like to look at in a bit more detail in order to see how they might be dealt with by means of targeted measures as opposed to taking a one-size-fits-all approach, which we may well do also. We must consider whether there are particular courses that are missing out at the moment and on which we could focus? The Deputy mentioned the alienation scenario, which is always raised with me and which I am taking a good look at in order to identify what we can do. There are a number of other measures. The student accommodation strategy is up and running. Some results have begun to emerge already and some proposals emanating from the strategy in terms of greater accommodation provision. I hope to see that being accelerated as fast as possible. We have invited all colleges to make submissions in respect of the strategy. There are a number of different facets to the cost of attending college and making life easier for students.

I call Deputy Kenny.

There is a question in my name, but Deputy McGettigan's question is the next to be taken.