Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the USI representatives very much. I admire them greatly because many people come in here with incantations of awfulness, but do not come up with solutions. Well done to the USI for coming up with solutions that are reasonable, achievable and well laid out. They are good examples of what the witnesses are talking about. I am sure they have many such examples and picked out very relevant ones.

I am interested that the USI representatives did not mention the disgraceful behaviour of the banks on undergraduate and postgraduate grants, which is a bugbear of mine. Even more disgraceful is that bank interest rates are at one level when undergraduates are studying, but they are increased when students qualify. Banks now have branches on university campuses all over the country. At the moment, people are trying to convince the Government to change all kinds of variable rates, so this locks into what the USI representatives are talking about here. Perhaps they could elaborate on it. Well done to them. I think Senator Power's suggestion is a good one which we should pursue.