Professor Michelle Norris:

My view is that I have ethical concerns about requiring things of people who decide to qualify in a very socially valuable profession, like social work, that we do not require of graduates in other areas such as business, etc. I have an ethical issue about it. Of course, it is entirely appropriate where bursaries are provided, and in the 1990s, as Dr. Halton mentioned, when we increased our output of students very radically, there was a practice of providing bursaries and students working for a number of years, which worked very well. The other point I want to make is that in UCD we run a two year professional master of social work programme, and our students are largely self-funding. They are not entirely self-funding, but all the universities are less than 50% State-funded, and I think in UCD we are in the high 30% range. Most of that money is for the so-called free fees for undergraduates, and we get a proportionate block grant to run the university. The students for a masters programme are paying the vast bulk of the cost of their student fees, which are between €8,000 and €9,000 a year. They are the fees to cover the programme. I can understand why it would ostensibly seem attractive, and there is certainly an argument that it is entirely reasonable to request that when people are being funded by the Government. For our students I have an issue about it, as well as around attracting people into these professions with these requirements. That is my view.