Third Level Fees

162. Deputy Donna McGettigan asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science when student fees will be completely abolished (details supplied). [72063/26]

The programme for Government does not contain a commitment in respect of abolishing student fees. I do not know how many times I have to repeat it, but I advise anyone who thinks it does to read the programme for Government. If they can find such a commitment, I will be amazed, because it is not there. To talk about fees more broadly, I have reduced the student contribution fee by €650 over two budgets. That is permanent. It is there to stay. It is not going anywhere. It is not evaporating. It is not a temporary intervention that will be gone next year but a permanent, sustainable, costed, affordable intervention. We focus a lot in these debates on the headline fee. It is more instructive to look at how many people actually pay that fee and how many do not. A huge number of students do not pay it at all because they are rightly subsidised and supported by SUSI paying the fee in full or paying 50% of it. There is also a new measure I have introduced in this budget for any family with up to €150,000 in household earnings - which I hope every Member will agree is a decent and well above-average household income - being eligible for significant supports. It is almost €2,000 of supports if you are in that bracket and have three students attending college. We have a range of measures applying right up to households with income of €150,000 to support families with the cost of fees and, more broadly, the cost of education. I introduced a €34 million package in this budget, as well as cutting the headline fee and introducing the families measure, which supports any household with two or more students in it. I also increased all SUSI grants by 4.5%, along with a number of targeted interventions for particular cohorts, for example, students who have a pregnancy during college and may have an additional support need, students with disabilities and students with a mandatory placement as part of their course. There is a number of targeted interventions introduced as part of the budget to help different cohorts, as well as the headline figures, SUSI grants and all the other measures in that package.

When the Minister talks about reducing fees, he has to understand the reality that students are still paying €350 more than they were when Simon Harris promised to abolish them. I do not think the Minister gets the reality of how student fees and the rising cost of living are affecting students and their ability to attend college. For many students, going to college is a daily financial struggle with registration fees, accommodation, food and transport all putting huge pressure on students and their families. We have recently seen students taking to the streets and protesting to highlight the need for more affordable education and greater supports. These protests show how frustrated students have become with the financial struggles they face. If, as he says, the Minister is doing his best and all he can, then he needs to hear what they are saying because they would not have had to protest if things were going so great for them. Some students cannot even afford to attend certain days of lectures because of the cost of travel. We have the dearest free education in the world and it is time to abolish student fees so every student has an equal chance of success.

It is certainly not the dearest in the world. If we go 100 miles north, it is double or treble the cost in the Northern Ireland Administration. It is three times in the UK and probably five times across the Atlantic in the US. If we go around the world to Australia and New Zealand, we see fees that are multiples of ours. Our comparators are the Anglosphere because that is where students move around. We are probably one of the cheapest of the anglospheric countries in terms of the base fee rate. I will continue to examine fees and other measures that affect the cost of college but there is a real problem if the Deputy is telling me a student has a €150,000 household income and is still struggling. What is going wrong there? I genuinely ask that question. Do people have scenarios, examples or case studies of households with €150,000 coming in? That is well above the median or average income. The fee is already down to €2,350. If there are two or more students in the household, that is slashed considerably more. I will continue to examine it but let us be aware of who will benefit. It is the really high incomes - probably the top 10% in incomes - who are left paying full fees. Other students have been subsidised in full or in part.

Is it any wonder students do not feel their voices are being heard with that answer? The Minister may say €150,000 is great but he is not taking in all the circumstances. He is not taking in everybody in that household. Because this Government cannot give them a house, some students' status is based on their parents' income, not their own income. That is wrong. Students need to be listened to. The Minister knows as well as I do that we do not hold the purse strings in the North. They are held in Westminster but our MPs in the North have made sure we pay one third less than in England. They are putting their students front and centre. Directing that point to me does not wash. Students need to be listened to. It is that simple. We have students at food banks and period poverty banks and having to live on floors or couches. That is the reality. The Minister needs to listen to that and to the students.

I listened to the students yesterday by meeting the AMLÉ executive and this morning by meeting the SUSI executive, the people who administer the grants. I listen to them all the time. We have strong, constructive discussions and we drill into the real cost. I have no doubt that cost and access are challenging for many but it is important we have an honest conversation about who benefits if we continue to chip away at fees. Higher income families will benefit. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that but we should be clear what we are advocating for and why. The measures I have taken so far involve a dual approach. I will do my best to continue to reduce the baseline fee but I will also add targeted supports to increase SUSI grants, to increase fee subsidies where there are two or more children in the house, to bring in a 50% fee payment for middle-income families, to pay it in its entirety for low-income families, to bring the student accommodation strategy to bear, to give support to students with disabilities, to give additional access funding in colleges and to assist with placements where students have to take them on. All of these are targeted measures addressing real problems that have been raised. Perhaps they are more important than families on over €150,000.