Mr. Bernard Joyce:

There are opportunities to enhance the pathways to further education. I want to return to the thresholds applying to bursary applications. The thresholds applying to the 1916 bursary for Travellers and the SUSI grant could be increased given the intergenerational and historical context of that around unemployment and economic disadvantage. The Deputy may not be aware that for a part-time student to go back to third level education involves a financial burden and challenge. Ms Joyce highlighted that. Given only 1% of Travellers are in third level education, there should not be an issue in terms of investment and targeted interventions to get us to a stage where we increase the target to 20%, 25% or 30% over the next number of years. That would be a help. In terms of mature students participating in higher education under the new national access plan, Travellers should be named in that and supports should be targeted. The supports that have been put in place by the Traveller sector should be complemented.

We call for resources to support that current work within the Traveller sector to enable further progression into primary, post-primary and third level education.