Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I, too, commend the witnesses on their work. I apologise for not being here for their briefing but I have a fair idea of what they are proposing and I wholeheartedly pledge my support for it. Coming from Dundalk, DKIT is the one with which I am most familiar. I see it growing from strength to strength. In my area of music I studied my masters course in DKIT, which I would not have been able to take anywhere else were it not for the courses and how it was laid out for people on a part-time basis.

The establishment of this North-South higher education forum would be a wonderful initiative to encourage movement. We have all seen the facts and figures and the lack of students coming North to South. Earlier this morning I raised better communication and awareness for the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, UCAS, and the Central Applications Office, CAO, to get on. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn explained what is happening in the CAO system but it gives us scope to work on that and impress on him the importance of ensuring there is better scope and that people have more mobility, North and South.

We also spoke about people from low socioeconomic and low income backgrounds. The idea of a scholarship fund is great and should be encouraged. It would be a pledge to show the institutes of technology are progressive in their thinking and are catering for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The issue of the A levels and the fact that when one transfers them one has only 450 points in the Irish system is ridiculous. That is the huge barrier we must overcome first.