Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Dolan for all her work in these areas. I am glad the Senator reminded me because one of the key objectives that I want to see from the €307 million of additional funding into the sector is that we do not talk about it as €307 million. What that roughly means to people is we are spending much more on everybody's education every year. That will achieve more staff in the universities and an improvement on the student-staffing ratios which, in Ireland, are somewhere between 19:1 and 20:1. The European average is in or around 15:1. It is not done in the rigid way that a pupil-teacher ratio in a classroom is done. Students are used to large lectures in universities, and technological universities in due course, but overall the ratios of staff to students need to improve in the sector. That is a key aim that we want to deliver on.

On the SUSI review, I thank the team in the Department which worked hard on this. It is a really good piece of work and a key commitment in the programme for Government. It was done efficiently and also comprehensively in terms of the breadth, as the Senator acknowledged, of consultation.

The encouraging aspect is that much of what the review said is what we had begun. I am not suggesting we have done enough - we have not - but the review basically says we must ensure we increase the rates. We have started that. There is much more we need to do. The review said we must reduce the adjacency-non-adjacency rate. We have done that and need to do more on that. The review pointed to postgraduates in which area we need to do more. One area I must be honest about is that we have a piece of work to do is around part-time education. At present, we do not provide SUSI for part-time education. We need to bottom out. The Senator might ask what I mean by that.

I do not mean this in a flippant way. What do we define part-time education as? How long a period of education does it have to be? Where does it fit on the qualifications framework? We need to do work to get moving on that. We cannot have the policy contradiction of telling people that studying part-time is great and then not providing them with support. I feel strongly about that.

The one-stop shop for Ukrainian students, researchers and staff is going well. I thank Maynooth University for hosting it, but it is very much a cross-sector initiative. I thank the admissions offices of universities which have seconded people to this facility. It has provided a phone line and an email address. The higher education system can be difficult for anyone to navigate at the best of times, so it could be especially difficult for someone coming here from a war-torn country. The idea is that people will have an individual conversation with Ukrainian students, researchers or staff members about their stage of education in Ukraine and how that can work in Ireland, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that everyone can continue their education and research. I am pleased that we have been working on this at a European level. I thank Commissioner Mariya Gabriel for her work on this.

There are many ways to deal with the cost of education, the cost-of-living crisis and ways to support students outside my Department's remit. My Department only has two levers to address it directly, which are the student registration fee and the student grant scheme. The student assistance fund helps to a degree. The Government paper states that we will look at the options relating to both in each budget. In one year, the Minister might decide to use one over the other, another Minister might decide to do a little of both in the next year, and in another year, the Minister might decide it is not possible to do either. There will be a focus on it on budget day every year, just like we do with the pension. We have a debate every year, as we should, about what the pension should be. No one is begrudging people getting an increase in the pension. We do not have that discussion every year. That changes for students and their families. The cost of education paper will give us a seat at the table and provide focus to these issues.