Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is due back. I do not want to put the Minister of State in the position of making predictions with regard to how we should proceed but there are certainly a number of pinch points in the system. Every single third level institution and college of further education says that it is underfunded. Meanwhile, there is a feeling that there is too great a burden on the individual student or on his or her family.

As was alluded to earlier, those of our political persuasion have a vision of free education or education funded exclusively by the taxpayer. The previous Government ruled out any sort of student loans scheme quite strongly. I do not mean to put the Minister of State on the spot but can he give us a sense of how we could work together as a committee to tease through these solutions? There is no quick fix or easy answer. It is not as simple as saying that a given ideological position is much better than any other. I remember when this idea first came to the fore, which I myself benefited from, the argument was made that families who would have spent money on third level education would spend it instead on fee-paying schools to which they would not previously have had access. The argument was that it would only benefit the middle class and that it would not open third level education up to a whole cohort of students who had previously been locked out. It is arguable whether that was actually the case.

As to the future funding of third level education generally, will the Minister of State comment as to how effective this new Department will be in driving that debate? Will he give us some indication as to where he feels we need to go?