Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The complexity of the debate around participation is important. It is about allowing those pathways from further education into higher education and in the reverse as well. My worry is that there is a simplistic view around the debate that we would abolish the €3,000 fees and that will dramatically increase access. It has to be around ensuring that pathways and access programmes are going into specific communities and that there are support programmes for those areas. The big problem in the State is that, as everyone knows, there are areas in this city where there are 99% to 100% participation rates in third level education and there are other areas where those rates are under 10%. Those rates have been consistent over a long number of years. We can see those trends around the country. The Chair and I can look at Wexford and we know the exact areas concerned. They can be predicted without even doing any research. The worry is that the debate is just centred on abolishing fees in order to increase access but that will not matter to any of those communities. There will be no increase in participation unless we have the reform of SUSI and support for the other programmes.