Mr. Dave Moore:

What is absolutely highlighted is the need for a clear protection framework for all learners from the point of view of pursuing studies in Ireland. Obviously, I have drawn attention to the fact that students who were not in the country when the colleges closed would have no protection in the context of the way in which things are currently being done. Earlier today, we submitted specific proposals around the whole issue of learner protection. Other countries have watertight services in terms of protecting fees whereby they are held in an escrow arrangement and drawn down on a gradual basis rather than colleges receiving them in their entirety upfront. We have seen the repercussions of the latter, with students losing sums amounting to €7,000 in certain instances. That model is used in other countries.

Students in public sector colleges can avail of the services of the Ombudsman. There is no structure in place that offers any kind of protection for students who attend private sector colleges. A substantial issue arises in the context of the agents with whom students book their courses. In a fair proportion of cases, students book their courses through third parties rather than directly with colleges. That is an unregulated and extremely problematic aspect of this matter.

We have certainly seen agents in Mumbai still selling courses for colleges that are closed. There are serious issues around the roles agents play.

Much more proactive information needs to be made available for students to steer them in the direction of sound course choices. The only publicly available document at present which offers students any guidance as to what are approved courses is the internationalisation register, and that has been the problem more than the solution in recent times because all the colleges that have closed were on that. They were listed as approved. There needs to be an entirely new frame of reference for students seeking to choose their programmes, obviously based on solid, quality assurance measures for the programmes that make the list, and once those regulations are in place, they need to be robustly enforced. As a student said at a meeting in the context of the status of the colleges, they are private businesses but they are not candy shops. They are organisations where hundreds, if not thousands, of students' futures are on the line, and if they are not rigorously regulated, we could have repeats of what has happened.