Ms Helen Lowry:

Senator Fidelma Healy Eames asked about the number of people in universities affected by citizenship issues. We are able to discern how many are impacted on by this before university level because we can deal with a parliamentary question in terms of the number registered with the GNIB. We estimate that approximately 700 young people coming out of the leaving certificate programme are impacted on by difficulties in accessing citizenship and then facing fees at third level. Anecdotally, in terms of those in university, I can think of ten other people who are affected, but the number of varies, as Ms Bezborodova said. What we have found in induction and introduction meetings with young people and parents in the past few months and on outreach days on this issue is that many people are trying to get on with it, but they are struggling. Many people through word of mouth come to our centre on this issue and we find that they have made decisions such as letting a child go into second year while holding a second child back from doing the leaving certificate examination, placing a debt on a credit card and so on. Families are trying to make ends meet and adopt other arrangements. We do not know the numbers because universities do not necessarily record them.

On the Senator's question about international fees, we found that when this issue first emerged, universities would have looked at a young person with non-EU status and applied international fees. In the early days young people who had grown up here faced international fees, but in the past few years universities have administered a non-EU fees category. However, it still amounts to double or treble the amount Irish people pay. In Ms Bezborodova's case, she now has citizenship and her fees amount to treble what she would pay as an Irish citizen. While people like her do not pay international fees, they are in a non-EU category that still results in huge fees.