Dr. Aedín Doris:

I see the Senator's point. We can see from all the research on earnings in the workforce that, even if we hold the level of education and things like CAO points constant, the kids of better-off parents do better in the workplace. It is an advantage to have better-off parents. We will not get rid of that overnight. I would like it to happen but it will not happen. Therefore, when we are targeting resources, the important thing is to get the people who turn out to have benefited most from education to pay for it. Students whose parents pay their fees upfront may also be those whose parents paid for their private education. These parents will also be the ones who will provide the deposit for these students' houses when the time comes.

Well-to-do people help their kids in many ways. If parents do not spend their savings on fees, they will spend it on something else. When fees were removed back in the 1990s attendance at private schools and the use of grinds increased not by the poor kids but the well-to-do kids. Parents used the resources that they would have spent on education fees to give their kids advantages in other ways. These kids are going to be advantaged. Whether they are advantaged by their parents paying their fees, paying for grinds or helping to pay a deposit for a house, the final outcome does not matter in terms of how well off they end up. It is a matter of shifting between pots. Does the Senator see what I mean?