Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

Members on this side of the House welcome the publication of this Bill, although it is fair to say it has been a long time in the offing. By my account, 17 specific promises relating to this publication were given by the Minister in advance of the last general election and there was an expectation that, had the Bill been enacted earlier, the new measures the Minister is proposing could have applied to this academic year. She has now confirmed to the House that there is, effectively, no chance that these new arrangements will be in place until the 2009-2010 academic year, at the earliest, and this is a great pity. The real losers are students.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Education and Science and I will ask, before we approach Committee Stage, that it take hearings from all of the interested parties the Minister has met. I appreciate the fact that she has held these consultations but I think such hearings would be useful, for the committee, to ensure we are all in agreement. This will be our only chance to get this matter right for the years ahead so it is right and proper that the views of all interested bodies, including student bodies and so on, be on the record. They should submit their views to the committee in advance of Committee Stage to let us know if deficiencies exist in the Bill and whether certain amendments will be needed. This Bill is long overdue but we have an opportunity to make it work.

The current system is shambolic because, as the Minister rightly told the House, there are four separate schemes operated by 66 different bodies, which makes a mockery of the system. I was interested to read comments made last year by Aontas asserting that 24% of the complaints it received related to adult learners trying to access information and clarity on grants. A great deal of work needs to be done to streamline this process, make it clearer for all and ensure that responsibility to deliver the new grants structure in an open and transparent way rests with the VEC sector.

Applying for a student's grant is a notorious form-filling exercise and one would need an award in solving Rubik's cubes to understand all aspects of the area. Parents and students have found the constant filling of forms to be a real issue in recent years because one would need a PhD to understand them in some cases. I understand that these schemes are income related and that there must be accuracy in this regard, but we must streamline the process and this starts with the publication of this Bill.

A big problem facing students is the late payment of the third level maintenance grant, although the Minister is not at fault in this respect. That a student can receive payment of a grant three months after applying for it with his or her local authority is completely unacceptable. Many such students are in poor financial straits and should not receive such service. I was glad to hear the Minister say she will publish service level agreements so we will know exactly where we stand and the responsibilities of the new bodies that will make these payments.

It is fair to say there has been an attitude abroad that anything will do for students — they were seen as the last part of dealing with customers in terms of a local authority. That has to change. People should not underestimate the importance of these grants, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds. These grants are the reason many of those students can go to and sustain themselves in college. It is fair to say that in recent years there has been an improvement in the total amount allocated to student participation and to student support in college. However, we must do more because our grants are very low in comparison to other EU countries and it is a matter to which students regularly allude.

I will give some examples of the difficulties students face in trying to access existing grants. In the course of her contribution, the Minister put one on the record. There is the nonsensical idea that if one is 23 years of age, one is ultimately a dependant of one's mother and father, despite the fact that one could have a child or two or be in employment. This appears absolutely ridiculous to many young parents who want to access and remain in college, yet they are viewed solely as a dependant in terms of their parents' income. I welcome what the Minister said about that today, that there is greater flexibility in the Bill to deal with that issue, because this matter needs to be addressed.

A great scandal is the case I came across in my constituency only the other evening. A young student in first year in UCD has just got a bill for €6,500 because his parents have come to Ireland but have not been granted leave to remain. That student is not an Irish citizen. While the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is attempting to resolve his status here and the status of his parents, we will not recognise the payment of tuition fees to that student and so he is being lumbered with a bill for €6,500 that he and his family will have to pay, plus the fact that he cannot obtain a third level grant through the maintenance grants structure. That issue needs to be addressed in the Bill.

If an Irish student is effectively having his or her residency determined over a long period, he or she goes through post-primary education, is here for a number of years and ends up in college. At the very least we should be able to deliver for that student the same support and fees enjoyed by everyone else. I do not blame the Department of Education and Science because the problem lies with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and its failure to rectify the situation for that particular student. Such cases are becoming a real issue. Some of the brightest young people here are going to college and finding their path to education frustrated by the failure of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to regularise their situation and that of their parents. Ultimately, the Department of Education and Science has to pick it up.

Desperate poverty traps exist within the system of top-up grants for adult learners, a situation that was brought to my attention and that of Deputy Quinn at a recent Aontas conference. A student who went back to college could not get the top-up grant because he was working in the previous year. However, had that same individual been unemployed, or left work, he would have been entitled to a top-up grant. The whole system is chaotic and riddled by the type of poverty traps many of us know from the social welfare system that need to be rectified, if not in this Bill, certainly in a codified way in terms of dealing with social welfare and the Department of Education and Science.

I welcome the fact that we are moving to the 30 or so separate bodies, the VECs, which will deliver the third level maintenance grant and the other three grants to which the Minister referred. It is crucially important that we get consistency across the VEC sector. That is why I welcome the fact that the Minister will soon publish the service level agreements. It is important there is a unified system and that it is enforced consistently across every VEC. I do not want one VEC taking a progressive position and others refusing to implement the spirit of the law. When the Act is in place, following improvements on Committee and Report Stages, it is crucial that the House and the Department are prepared to monitor performance to ensure that consistency.

The VEC sector has experience and personnel to deal with such issues. It deals with a whole range of educational issues from post-primary education to adult education, and soon primary education in the context of the Minister's new announcements in Dublin. The VECs have a range of experience which will help them. Will the Minister say whether it is the intention of the VEC to employ new staff, because these will be vastly increased units, or will existing staff from local authorities move to the VECs to take up the new positions?

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