Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of our witnesses for their evidence thus far. The primary purpose of these meetings is to discuss the future funding of higher education and in that context, I want to go into a number of issues. One of my key concerns is access and ensuring access for everybody at different levels within the system. My first question relates to decisions around priorities. I ask each of our witnesses to give me a succinct answer to my question and then I will come back to them after that. In the context of the Government's priority to increase access, should it consider, as the Minister is proposing, cutting student fees or should priority be given to the reform of the SUSI grant system? In an ideal world, we would look at both but I ask each witness to indicate, in a 15-second answer, whether the priority should be to cut student fees or to reform the SUSI grant system. I will start with my former colleague, Mr. Peter Brown.