Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and the introduction of this Bill. It has been quite some time in gestation and it is welcome that it has made its way to the House. Those of us who have been public representatives for some time, including the Minister of State, will be aware of the ongoing debate that takes place each summer when young adults are in the process of going to college and the difficulties that the lack of this legislation causes for them. It is important that the Bill sets out a single statutory system for the operation of the grant support system to students. It is better that the scheme reside in the VEC structure rather than the current system under which it is dispersed in a number of ways through the local authority. That does not take away from the capacity of the local authorities to deal with this matter, but it is better that it resides in the context of education within the environs of the VEC.

We should pay tribute to all those people within the local authorities who worked very well to provide the public face of the grants system to students and their parents. They dealt with difficult situations as the staff were often at the coalface of delivering information to students, such as the denial of a grant or a follow up on further information. It would be opportune to recognise the work of all those people in the local authorities who will no longer be involved. I am hopeful that the practical implementation of this Bill will streamline the entire administration of the grant scheme, thereby removing some of the anomalies that currently exist.

There is little doubt there is a huge burden on parents, especially when young adults are leaving secondary school and going into third level. While the costs are rather excessive in secondary school, it can be daunting for some parents, especially when they have a number of children receiving education. The burden that puts on pressure is very significant and it often goes below the surface. There are some families that will try to give their children the benefit of an education that they did not have. They will make sacrifices to give their children such an education, but may not want to show that financial strain. Many of them do not talk about it, but the burden on them is phenomenal. Therefore, the streamlining of the administration is helpful, welcome and necessary. I hope it relieves some of the anomalies that currently exist.

We should take into account what this Bill tries to do along with the abolition of fees. I pay tribute to the former Minister for Education, Ms Niamh Bhreathnach, who was responsible for that. It was enlightened thinking by the Government of the time. It is rightly continuing under the current Administration. While there may be no fees, education is not free. We often delude ourselves in suggesting that education is free, but that is not the case as there are costs involved in its delivery and in participation by young adults. Notwithstanding that, we have a much better approach to delivering education by minimising the cost as much as possible. That has been central to the development of this economy. It has been central in assisting the IDA and other agencies in attracting the kind of foreign direct investment that has helped many of our young educated people to remain here, rather than emigrate as they did in the past. Our education system has been to the fore in doing that. Free fees and student support have helped to ensure that we are delivering the kind of graduates that provide the knowledge and the pool of education to attract these companies.

The companies come to Ireland for a variety of reasons and I talked recently to representatives of Zimmer, a large multinational medical device company that has arrived in Shannon. They are in the region because Shannon is nestled between Limerick and Galway and they believe they will have an optimal pool of graduates and highly skilled people to perform the complicated duties associated with a high-tech company. The continuing support of this and successive Governments is responsible for the education delivery which ultimately provides jobs in the regions at a later stage. The continuing investment in education allows that to happen.

We should compare this with other countries. It is incumbent on students in other countries to take out loans, putting a burden on them at a later stage in life. On entering the workforce, they are burdened with very considerable debt associated with paying their way through college. That is not to say that the level of support currently available is in any way sufficient to put a student through college, but it does make a major contribution. While students leaving college today carry some debt, it is nothing like the debt burden that students in the US and elsewhere have to contend with. The Department has dealt with this issue in a positive way.

I welcome the notion of an independent appeals mechanism in the Bill. I am hopeful that it will be possible to apply to the appeals board during the course of an academic year, especially between semesters and when the fundamentals of an applicant's means have changed. I refer to situations where the principal breadwinner in a family is deceased or has been made redundant. That fundamentally changes the funds available to the student. As the current system does not take into account a change of circumstances during the year, I am hopeful that this Bill will allow the appeals board to do that. A student whose parent loses his or her job during the year is not in a position to apply for a new means test until the following year, something which will hopefully be addressed in the Bill.

There are a few anomalies that currently exist in the grant system and I would be grateful if the Minister could look at whether they will be addressed in this Bill. We must look at the area of grants as it currently applies to those returning to college, especially mature students. The age limit of 23 has been removed and it is now more about living independently or living dependently, but there are still anomalies. There is also an anomaly about where someone has lived prior to applying for the grant and whether or not that confers an independent or dependent status on that person. In order to obtain a grant, the person must also have been living in the country for three of the past five years. That is right and proper and I welcome the fact that it is set out here. I agree with Deputy Quinn's point about querying the necessity of putting it into the primary legislation and asking whether it should be reserved for secondary legislation. It might be better if it were changed through a statutory instrument, rather than being brought back to the floor of this House.

It is important to encourage those who may not have gone to college on leaving second level education or those who may have dropped out and who would wish at a later stage to come back. Anything that can be done to simplify their return by providing them with the necessary financial help would be welcome. It is particularly welcome because people who spend a few years working out of college find that their financial requirements are greater by virtue of their standing in life. Such people would be more dependent on financial assistance than somebody leaving secondary school. We need to look at this provision in terms of the funding we give to upskill our undergraduate mature programme.

The system that currently exists can be frustrating and I have an example of this. A young constituent of mine finished school and found a job. He had left home and spent a few years living and working in Cork. He decided to go back to college and he got a place on a recognised course in a college in Limerick. He was over 23 at the time and had been living independently for five years. Under normal circumstances, he should qualify on the grounds of means and on independent grounds. Prior to taking up his place in the college in Limerick, he travelled to the United States for approximately 12 months. During this period he returned home several times to get his affairs in order and prepare for college. In his grant application he gave his parents' residence in County Clare as his contact address. Although he had lived independently for the previous five years, he did not own a property or have a contact address other than that of his parents.

The person in question intended to return to Ireland and rent accommodation close to the college in Limerick before commencing his course. He first stayed at his parents' house for about a fortnight while he found rental accommodation. However, as he had used his parents' address as a point of contact, the Department deemed that he was not living independently and was, therefore, a dependant. For his grant application to proceed, he was required to submit income details for his parents, which were not such as to allow him to secure a grant. This difficult case highlights an unfair anomaly, which I hope will be addressed either in the text or during the implementation of the legislation. It is a clear case of how it can work against a person who is living independently to use the address of his or her parents as a contact point.

In addition, as the person in question had previously lived independently in Cork, he was required to apply for a grant through the vocational education committee in Cork. I ask that provision be made to allow applications to be made to the offices of the closest or most convenient vocational educational committee, irrespective of where the applicant lives. Given that the funding for grants comes from central Government rather than a specific pool of money assigned to the VECs, it is not necessary to impose a residency-type clause in grant applications. I hope the Minister of State will address this matter and ensure grant applications are processed in a uniform manner. This would remove some of the mystery and difficulty from the application process.

It will also be necessary to examine the means test to find structured approaches that ensure applicants are fairly assessed, taking into account cases in which parents' circumstances have changed significantly since their most recent P60 was issued. As the Minister of State is aware, the means test is based on the previous year's earnings. For a student entering college in the academic year beginning in October 2008, the means test is calculated based on parents' earnings in 2007. In some cases, a parent may have passed away, lost a job or earned a lower income as a result of illness.

Furthermore, in some unfortunate cases a parent's means may be significantly exaggerated in a particular year by virtue of overtime or other factors. This creates a peak in an otherwise elongated work cycle. To address the negative effect of such peaks, the assessment of means should be done over an average of three years, rather than one year. The self-employed and those working in industry may earn much more than usual in a given year. Such unique circumstances would best be addressed by removing the current rigorous rules and introducing in the appeals process a new set of criteria which provide for a degree of latitude. We need to find an approach which facilitates those who wish to return to college by taking into account changes in financial circumstances. The objective should be to prevent undue hardship on parents and students, as occurred in the cases I described.

The certification of courses for grant purposes requires greater clarity and uniformity. The universities of Cork, Limerick and Galway offer postgraduate courses which confer on graduates the legal qualification, LLB. For grant purposes, the Department will not pay a graduate to undertake the LLB postgraduate programme at the University of Limerick, whereas it grant aids students at University College Cork and University College Galway. If three students, one at each university, were to complete the LLB postgraduate course, the outcome would be the same. However, a complication arises in the case of the University of Limerick because the LLB is also offered as an undergraduate programme. While entrance to the postgraduate stream requires a primary degree, the Department, for reasons I have failed to establish over a protracted period of discussion and correspondence, does not treat the programme as progression.

The qualification awarded on completion of all three postgraduate courses is precisely the same. However, a number of students in County Clare have failed in their efforts to secure grant aid to attend the LLB programme at the University of Limerick. If they enrolled in the same programme in either Cork or Galway they would qualify for grant aid.

Work needs to be done in the area of certification. I am aware that discussions have taken place in the Department on educational accreditation with a view to finding a common purpose on this issue.

It is disturbing that a person who decides to enrol on a course at the University of Limerick and completes the application process, having met the course lecturers, will be refused grant aid, whereas students enrolling on the same course at University College Galway will qualify for grant aid. Returning to college to complete a postgraduate programme requires significant commitment. We need to encourage those who pursue this option because advanced qualifications are beneficial in maintaining a region's skill base and ensuring it continues to attract companies to locate in it.

I welcome the Bill. While some of the points I raise may appear to be somewhat critical, that is not my intention. I have sought to highlight elements in the current structure which I would like the Minister to address in the primary legislation. I would be grateful if the Bill were amended or new provisions inserted to take account of these points. Alternatively, I would welcome secondary legislation to address the issues. I ask the Minister of State to comment.

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