Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Clarke. I will get her Twitch in a minute. I find myself in agreement with much of what she has said. On the issue of lone parents, while I do not need to mansplain this in any way to the Deputy, she is right that we have made progress. That is a statement of fact. In truth, there are now more people from diverse and different backgrounds entering higher education. The Deputy is also right that a lot more needs to be done.

I will briefly identify three things. Reform of the student grant is a big piece. Second, based on an experience I had in Wexford the other day, I know that the opening of the technological universities, bringing education into the regions, is a game changer. I was talking to lone parents in Wexford who are involved in lifelong learning and they told me that, if they did not have the Wexford campus and had to go to Waterford, that would not have been possible. That is what they basically said. Ensuring that not all roads lead to the big city and bringing higher education into the regions is important. It will provide opportunities for people from a whole variety of backgrounds, including lone parents, who may not be there otherwise and it is already doing so. That is the feedback I got this week.

The third thing I will identify is online learning. We saw this during the Covid pandemic. During that time, we saw a lot of things we would never want to see again but we also saw an education system that was less rigid and more flexible and responsive. Obviously, outside of the pandemic, that will have to be done in a more organised and planned way. I met with Longford Women's Link, which is an incredible organisation. All those I met were women learners who were, at a later stage in life, accessing degree programmes at Maynooth University and South East Technological University Carlow from rural Longford. They told me that the availability of online education, which was, to be honest, a Covid measure, enabled them to do a degree. They were not able to pack their bags and head to Maynooth and Carlow.

If I was to pick three things, and there are way more, they would be: the reform of financial supports, particularly the student grant; bringing education into the regions; and bringing education online. Those three things are potential building blocks.

The Deputy is right to highlight the poverty traps and the disconnect that sometimes arises between the initiatives of one Department and another Department's schemes. We are trying to work our way through those. The Department of Social Protection was involved in the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, review. The Deputy is right; we need to improve how the back-to-education allowance interacts with other areas.

On the adjacent and non-adjacent rates of grant, I was determined to make progress on this issue in the budget. The Deputy has acknowledged that we did although she also believes we need to do a lot more. It was the case that you had to live 45 km away for the non-adjacent rate. That has been reduced to 30 km. This means that many students will see their grant go up by 25%, 30% or 35% this September. That is great but the Deputy is right in that, if you live 29 km away, you are out. That is always the issue when you set thresholds. However, if the Deputy were to ask me whether I am finished my journey with regard to reducing those rates, I would say that I am not. I hope to make more progress on that. The SUSI review, which was published yesterday, feeds into that.

Deputy Clarke makes an interesting point on apprenticeships. Again, I believe she is correct. It drives me crazy when people ask me, whether their sons and daughters should do third level or an apprenticeship because an apprenticeship is third level education. It is just a different way of doing it. It is the same piece of paper. You can do a science degree in this country as an apprentice. More and more, I am asking the universities and colleges - they are autonomous but it would be interesting to get their views when they are here later - how they can provide more of their degree programmes through the apprenticeship route. In Ireland, you can do a master's degree as an apprentice, although there is only one such programme available. You can even do a PhD as an apprentice in one area. Can that become the norm to a greater degree? The gender impact of that could be quite significant.

With regard to my experience of how Government, by which I mean the State rather than Government in the political sense, operates on gender equality, there is good and bad. A good example is the work we are doing on the third strategy, which is being led by my colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee. It is a very collaborative, joined-up process and it is going well. All of our Departments are feeding in their actions. In my opening statement, I outlined what my Department is doing. The Minister will bring that strategy to Cabinet. Her Department is clearly the lead Department in that area. Everyone gets how that works, which is good.

I do not think back on my leaky pipeline as a good example. Again, I am not talking about Departments or Ministers but about the State, but I do not think we are as co-ordinated on the enterprise side. If Women in Technology and Science Ireland, WITS, was here today, it could outline ten or 12 reasons women with science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, qualifications are not working in that field. Those ten or 12 reasons would span four, five, six or seven Departments. We are not joined up in that regard. If I was to ask who is responsible for fixing that leaky pipeline, the answer would be a very long list of people. Usually, when a long list of people are responsible for something, nobody is. There is a good example and a bad example of co-ordination.

I will reflect on the question of how to measure progress. It is a fair one. How do we measure progress in terms of tackling sexual harassment, sexual violence and gender-based violence in third level education every year? My initial answer would be that we do it in two ways. We have an annual survey, which gives us a baseline. Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin convinced me that you need annual surveys so that you can get and measure the data. That is one way. The second way is that we now have annual reporting of institutions' action plans. The Deputy asked a very interesting question as regards what progress looks like and what we are measuring. I will reflect on that.

On professional development, to be truthful, I do not know the answer. It is a question for the institutions. We will find out or the witnesses in the afternoon session may be able to provide that information.