Ms Helen Lowry:

The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, MRCI, and the migrant education access campaign welcome the opportunity to address the committee. The migrant education access campaign is an initiative of the MRCI to work with young people on the issue of equality of access to third level education. It is of particular relevance to the review of the national access plan for 2013 and the reform process at the heart of the higher education strategy.

MRCI is a national organisation which for the last ten years has worked with migrants and their families. We operate a busy resource centre in Dublin city and have become aware of this issue through our work in it. As the submission we supplied to the committee on Monday deals more thoroughly with the issues arising, I will focus on the key points.

The context of our discussion is that the Ireland of today is young and diverse.

Two weeks ago, the HEA spoke here about our large, expanding and diverse pool of young people at third level as one of our biggest strategic assets. We agree with that.

Ireland has experienced a sustained period of inward migration over the past ten years that has resulted in a very diverse and multicultural country. Thousands of migrant families have made Ireland their permanent home. For example, 17% of our population was born outside of Ireland and one in seven of our children comes from a migrant background. A growing part of our diversity comes from the youth population. The result is we have very diverse national schools, a very diverse student body at secondary school and at university. Many of the young people to whom we have been talking and with whom we work came here to join their parents under the family reunification programme, which is an inevitable and humane reality of global migration throughout the world.

In terms of understanding access issues that arise for young immigrants, we are talking about young people who have lived here for a minimum of three years. Many of those who have made Ireland their home over the past ten years have completed their primary school education and their entire secondary school education in this country. In essence however, the problem boils down to the fact we have an immigration system that never really considered their arrival in the country and a third level education system that is significantly inaccessible for many of them.

I will mention the immigration dimension to this issue briefly as it is quite important. While I understand this is an education committee, there is an important overlap between it and immigration. There is a significant immigration dimension to the problem that is worth outlining. The situation is complex and we believe a response will necessitate interdepartmental co-operation between the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Education and Skills. We see the Department of Education and Skills as having a key role and responsibility in terms of alleviating the inequity of access issue.

In the absence of a fully transparent and comprehensive immigration framework over the past decade of inward migration to Ireland, the window of opportunity for young non-EU migrants to secure citizenship has remained very narrow. If children of non-EU migrants have not obtained citizenship - which is often outside of their control - prior to entering a third level institution, they face three scenarios. Many committee members will be familiar with these scenarios in the context of people they have met through their constituency offices.

First, they will not qualify for the free fees initiative, because they will inevitably fail the nationality condition, despite having completed their second level education in the State and despite meeting the three out of five years requirement for residency. Second, they will often not qualify for the higher education grants. Third - the issue most pertinent to this committee's deliberations - they will not be able to reverse their fee status upon securing Irish citizenship during their third level education. Therefore, they will be forced to continue to pay excessively high tuition fees and will be unable to enjoy the privileges of their newly acquired Irish citizenship status. Ms Bazborodova will discuss that in a moment.

Over the past ten years, young people joined their parents here and set up their homes at a time when there was an absence of comprehensive immigration legislation. We welcome the significant immigration reform that is taking place currently, but unfortunately it has not happened fast enough for these young people - the children of the first generation of immigrants - to be able to access their citizenship. We acknowledge that interim measures in place now are important. From an immigration perspective, young people are being facilitated to try to acquire citizenship, even if their residence stamps are not applicable. We welcome this, but it is an interim measure in the absence of an immigration, residency and protection Bill which we will not see the heads of until 2013. We know it will take some time to see the trickle down effect of that in terms of citizenship. From that perspective, we would highlight the current leaving certificate cycle. We estimate approximately 730 of these young people a year will have difficulties accessing citizenship under the interim measure.

With regard to the response of the educational system, over the past ten years universities have been unclear about how to respond to young people resident in Ireland long term, but not in possession of citizenship. We have had very good consultations with access officers and fees officers in universities around the country on this. Initially, these young people were deemed to be in the same category as international students, which was highly problematic. However, over the past ten years, universities have applied an EU fees category as an interim measure. This results, however, in tuition fees that are three times the rate applied to Irish born peers. On average this comes to €8,000 per year and over a four-year degree the accumulating difference is approximately €40,000, without buying a book, getting a bus or having lunch in the canteen.

The final aspect we want to highlight concerns young people securing citizenship while in college. Perhaps they just turned 18 at the time their parents got citizenship, but unfortunately had already started their degree course. Even if they get citizenship in the first year of a four-year degree, they are told, more often than not, they are unable to reverse their fee status and must continue to pay the higher rate fees for the remainder of their course. We have noticed that universities are responding to this issue on an ad hoccase by case base. Often a solution is brought about only through the goodwill of the university or of those involved, but more often than not no solution is found.

Ms Bazborodva will now outline her situation. It is important to hear from young people affected by the issue.