Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Select Committee on Education and Skills

Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary)
Vote 45 - Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Supplementary)

Photo of Marc Ó CathasaighMarc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the Minister of State for his presentation and for the briefing documents that accompanied it. I will raise five issues, which I will go through as a back-and-forth with the Minister of State rather than asking them all at once. The first relates to page 4 of the briefing. It mentions savings of €48 million, largely due to lower than expected numbers of students utilising the student grant scheme.

That seems like a lot of money to find down the back of a couch. Why does the Department think there was a reduced take-up of that grant scheme?