Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

Delivering access to education to everyone on this island is a priority for Sinn Féin. We believe that learners from all social, economic and cultural backgrounds must be given the opportunity to go into further and higher education, especially in today's competitive climate. However, education should not be pursued for solely financial or business gains. It is a powerful tool that can liberate and empower people.

With regard to access to further and higher education, four notable groups are underrepresented, namely, students who are socio-economically disadvantaged, Travellers and ethnic minorities in general, students with a disability and mature students. While the Minister for Education and Science claims to prioritise tackling disadvantage throughout the education spectrum, this seems like empty rhetoric to many. The reality is that most kids from areas of high deprivation will not make it to college.

There are some areas in Ireland where less than 10% of young people go on to higher education. While I welcome the small increase in the number of people from lower income families attending further and higher education, there is a yawning gap to bridge before we achieve fair representation. To widen overall access, we need collaboration between primary, second level, further and higher education. It is important to emphasise not just entry to higher education but also successful participation and completion.

While 75% of Irish people between the ages of 26 and 64 are in employment, less than 10% of them are lifelong learners, compared with 34% in Sweden and 21% in Britain. Lifelong learning here is in a mess and hundreds of thousands of people need retraining, reskilling etc. The ESRI has estimated that up to 400,000 workers in the labour force are likely to suffer deprivation in any economic downturn because they lack the skills for new employment.

According to Forfás, higher education is crucial to Ireland's economic wellbeing. However, the entry rate to higher education reached just 54% in 2003. The education system should be an instrument of progress for everyone, not a means to reproduce inequalities where medicine and law college places are, for the most part, essentially the reserve of the wealthy. It is imperative that disadvantaged students receive adequate financial support to survive and successfully complete further or higher education. The Department will spend a little over €1 million on stationery services this year, but will spend less on university scholarships. No student from an area of high disadvantage who successfully makes it to third level should be financially worse off than he or she would be on the dole. However, in many cases that is the shameful reality.

Students have expressed their anger to me over the delay in receiving their higher education grants or their back to education initiative money. This issue was ignored in the last budget. There is a great need for substantially increased funding for back to school initiatives where people would not lose their welfare entitlements. People need to be encouraged back to education, not discouraged.

The Government should put its money — I should say our money — where its mouth is and implement the McIver report immediately. Although the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, threw away €52 million of our money on e-voting, the Government cannot find the necessary €48 million to implement the McIver report. Where is the logic in paying €450,000 in consultancy fees, if it does not implement the recommendations?

Further education students also lose out because of the Government's failure. The PLC sector is for some their only real chance of further education. It needs to be enhanced, developed and provided with appropriate resourcing, funding, staffing and restructuring. The sector caters for 30,000 students, the majority from areas of disadvantage. After all the Government's posturing, is it not time, after a lengthy delay of three years, to implement fully the report?

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