2025-11-12

I take this opportunity to raise the issue of the cost of further and higher education. Is the Department planning to publish a roadmap to address the cost of education at higher and further level? As a fellow graduate of UCC, no doubt the Taoiseach will remember the days in the Kampus Kitchen or the main restaurant when he would have counted his change before buying a warming bowl of soup or cup of Barry's tea. Students today are similarly capable of making the most of every euro, but spending a couple of years in college is very expensive, even if supplemented with summer or part-time work. We have to ensure that such work is supplemental. Our students are poorly served by a Government if they have to sacrifice classes and study time working full-time to pay for college. This will not maximise their potential or support our knowledge economy. Those currently at second level are now looking to their third level education choices, discussing options with their families. Cost is a big part of that discussion because we know cost is a barrier to continuing with education. From a student and parent’s view, third level fees have increased this year versus what they paid in 2025. I hear the impact of this from students and parents in my Dublin Rathdown constituency. As I also have UCD in my constituency, I hear it from the students living in my constituency who are from all parts of Ireland. These students and parents tell me they know they have been supported over the last few years. They have saved €2,500 in the three years of their degrees, a saving they did not budget for, through the reductions in fees. This is compared to what they expected to pay when they accepted their college places in 2022 or 2023. They are also well informed. They understand that this budget was the first of five over the course of this Government and a college journey takes place over a number of years, but those in their early years are also asking how exactly we will honour the commitments that we made in the programme for Government - our commitment to reducing the student contribution fee and expanding the SUSI maintenance grant. Now is the time to give students and families clarity on how this will happen and for the Department to provide people with the right assurances and a plan of action. For every family that has a child in further or higher education, or who may be starting third level in two, three, four or even five years’ time, I ask the Taoiseach to ensure that the Minister for further and higher education develops and publishes a roadmap on how to reduce the cost of education as a matter of priority.

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. I do remember my days in the Kampus Kitchen. Actually in the students union, we led a protest when there was an increase in the price of coffee, even though I did not drink coffee, but it did not stop us having a great time having a protest.

Something to protest about.

We set up our own coffee operation and we realised that there were very high margins in coffee - that was a take-away - and tea. I do not want to be promoting any more of this kind of activity but, anyway, the company was not too impressed. I can see Richard is nodding in agreement.

We will join with the Taoiseach's fight.

If we had had Deputy Boyd Barrett at the time, we probably would have had a more effective protest. Welcome back. In any event, I think the third level education situation has a broad range of issues. First of all, we have to have really sufficient funding and core funding so that the quality of third level education is high and that it rates internationally. That is very important. There have been, to be fair on the last Government and this Government, sustained increases in the core funding of higher education over three budgets now, a total of €164 million. In addition, additional Exchequer employer contributions have been secured, a further €100 million per annum committed to by 2030. That came out of that report some years ago. The other key area is in terms of research. I am very keen that we would step-change our investment in research, which is key for students themselves, but also for society and for the economy in terms of having really high-level, quality research activities in our universities that provide solutions to world problems but also then act as a very significant catalyst for new industries, new products and services. We did this before in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We are determined to do it again. Already as a result of this budget, there is about €425 million in research and innovation in the 2026 budget. That is part of a €2.3 billion NDP allocation. We have to do it, given what is happening in America, tariffs and everything, and threats to established ways of working. We simply have to really double down and reinforce our own capacity to develop our own indigenous industries and also to attract investment in respect of life sciences, renewable energy, technology and AI more generally. Then we have to invest in apprenticeships and skills. Really significant progress has been made over the last number of years. Combining that with the R and D tax credit, that is effective. In terms of supports for students and families, there was a €500 real cut this year. The cost of living measure was just a two-year provision right across the board, but we have embedded €500 of that cut to the student contribution fee. That is permanent. There is a higher SUSI income threshold as well now. It is now €120,000, the highest ever, extending support to thousands more families. There are 30,000 students living 30 km from campus. They receive higher non-adjacent SUSI payments as well. That is up. Then we have to look at the postgraduate students-----

Time is up. You will be back in, Taoiseach. I call Deputy O'Connell.

-----and make sure the cost for them is reduced significantly.

I thank the Taoiseach. I am delighted to hear that he was a fellow tea-drinker as well. As a Corkman, I have to assume that is good old Barry's Tea too. I welcome that. I also support our investment in research but I do not see that it is a trade-off. We need to invest in our students, but the cost of education can encourage students to work more hours and damage their education. There is another opportunity that I would like to ask about relating to the whole area of student accommodation. We have extended the 9% construction rate VAT to student accommodation but there is another opportunity we have in that regard. Recently, I visited TU Dublin, my former employer, to discuss the challenges it and other technological universities are facing. The team there identified two potential locations for building student accommodation. One is in Grangegorman, which is quite a small site overall, and a major site in Blanchardstown. However, they are lacking borrowing capacities and without this have no chance of being able to develop these sites. What is the timeline for the establishment of this borrowing framework, which is a commitment in the programme for Government, to enable the technological universities to get on with building accommodation for students and apprentices?

The publication of a strategic student accommodation approach or strategy is imminent. The Minister took it to the Cabinet subcommittee recently. It involves looking at the specific issue of how we can give capacity to the technological universities in particular to facilitate the development of student accommodation, either on the site that they may have, adjacent or wherever. The Minister has quite innovative approaches, which will draw on the need for the private sector to be involved. The scale of what is required will need private sector engagement and involvement. Again, we acknowledge that there has been a historic challenge to technological universities because they never had borrowing capacity. Mechanisms are being looked at between the Minister for higher education and the Minister for Finance in respect of that and good progress is being made. Along with the housing strategy in due course, and very quickly thereafter, there will be a strategy in terms of student accommodation also.