M J Nolan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill, which has been a long time coming and is welcome. It may be a little late but it is important that it is now being debated in the House. I hope it will receive a swift passage through the Houses. I note from the contributions of previous speakers that the Bill appears to be receiving cross-party support, which is good because it is important legislation.

The Bill updates the current legislation on student grants. There are currently 66 bodies dealing with student applications for maintenance grants and the system has become unwieldy. Many families and individual students become confused, as they finish secondary school and think about moving on to third level education, by the amount of form-filling involved and the number of different bodies from which they must obtain information. It is to the credit of the Minister for Education and Science that the procedure is now being streamlined. When the legislation is passed and the regulations are published, the 33 city and county VECs will administer the scheme.

Since its introduction, the grant scheme has been successful in ensuring the vast majority of our young people have the opportunity to attend third level education, be it an institute of technology or a university. The Bill will be generally welcomed because it will ensure we have an efficient and customer-friendly grant scheme and that individual families, particularly families without a history of attendance at third level education, are encouraged and assisted in allowing their children to continue their education.

The success of this economy over the last 20 years has been due in part, although not solely, to the fact that we have a well educated young workforce. This is attested to by the number of foreign direct investment businesses in the country. At a time when the economy is slowing down, not just in this country but worldwide, we will probably have to invest more in further education and in ensuring the percentage of second level students who go on to third level increases significantly. We have seen the flight of jobs — particularly low-paid, unskilled jobs — from our country to third world and other developing countries.

The commitment in the last programme for Government to provide for grant payment through a unified scheme was positive and will be followed through. In the first major modernisation of the grant scheme since the introduction of the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act 1968, this legislation goes a long way in providing for more efficient arrangements and ensuring that grant applications will be considered within a reasonable time frame and in a more transparent manner. Students who apply for grants will know that they will have their decisions within a certain time and, having received a positive decision, they will receive their payments on a regular basis. I know from experience that students are currently concerned because their grants are not arriving on time. This causes anxiety to students who are waiting for their grant to arrive on a certain day. It is important that the Minister, by regulation as provided for in the Bill, ensures this happens. The publication of the Bill marks a milestone in this process and will make a significant contribution to greater equality of access for students who wish to move on to higher education. The Union of Students in Ireland has made a strong case in promoting this Bill and I know its members are glad to see it is finally being discussed.

The legislation will bring clarity to the process of applying for higher education grants. We should not let the occasion go without acknowledging the role played by local authorities in processing grant applications to date. I can only speak personally, but the sympathetic consideration given by the local authority to families in my area of County Carlow is to be commended. There is a genuine willingness on the part of individual members of local authorities to accommodate families they know on a personal basis would experience hardship, in the absence of a grant, in ensuring their children go to college. I saw recently that the cost of keeping a student in college for a year is between €7,000 and €8,000. That is an average cost, but it can be higher depending on where the student goes to college.

This brings me to the question of student accommodation. I know anecdotally that this year great difficulties were experienced by some students in finding accommodation in Dublin, Cork and Galway. These places seem to be the hotspots when it comes to student accommodation. There are a number of reasons for this. Many landlords are now moving out of the student accommodation market and looking for more sustainable tenants who will be there on a 12-month basis rather than for eight or nine months. This is causing much hardship. In addition, rent for student accommodation has increased significantly over the last two and a half years. Perhaps now that there is a glut of accommodation, as we are told, rents may stabilise somewhat. However, accommodation will continue to be a problem in certain areas. While this may not be an educational matter, it is something the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government may consider. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is aware of this problem and is attempting to sort something out in this regard. I hope it will happen sooner rather than later.

Financial barriers have long been recognised as a major difficulty for many students who wish to go on to third level education. The increases in maintenance grants over recent years have made the third level option more affordable for a large number of students and their families. In approving the higher increases in the special rate of maintenance grant, the Minister and the Government continue to further target that support at those most in need and those who should be encouraged most to go on to further education.

The main objective of further and third level access programmes and initiatives is to encourage more young people from disadvantaged areas and disadvantaged families to continue with education. It is an ongoing struggle. Teachers in secondary schools as far as possible encourage students with particular abilities and skills to maximise them at third level. While it is difficult because of economic or social reasons to get them all to third level, we have seen a significant improvement in the numbers and the percentage of students going on to third level, and I would like to see that percentage increased even further.

The Government's commitment to supporting high rates of participation in third level education at all levels of society will ensure that Ireland continues to attract and maintain investment in high quality jobs and that the fruits of the success of the economy over the past 20 years will continue. Now more than ever we must ensure our students and workers, and young workers in particular, have the skills and education to avail of the high-end jobs now coming to the country.

We have seen a fall-off in the bottom or mid-skilled jobs and for individuals to tap in and be part of that new breed of worker, they must avail of at least second level education and, more importantly, third level education. In that context, it is important we look at the role of the institutes of technology.

A debate has gone on recently on the application by some institutes of technology for university status. The Minister and the Department are to be commended for looking at the overall broad effect of upgrading or reclassifying any particular IT to university status on the basis of the impact it would have on the other third level institutes.

We must put on record the role the old regional technical colleges, now institutes of technology, have played in the economic success of the country. They were first set up in 1970 and we were fortunate that, following on Donogh O'Malley's famous free second level education announcement in 1968, we provided the resources and the funding for them. When it was difficult in the late 1960s and early 1970s for any Government to provide funding for a new expanded third level arena, we had new regional technical colleges to take up the slack of students who were coming on stream having got a secondary education. These students went on to third level education, went into the workforce and were available to take up the jobs we found in the 1980s and 1990s. The experience that those students received certainly contributed to the economic success of the country, but the question of university status for one IT or two must not be taken in isolation and must be considered in the broad context of the knock-on effect on the other institutes of technology.

While according to international best practice we have sufficient, if not too many, universities in this country, there is an important role for institutes of technology to play. Perhaps we should look at going down that road and putting more resources into them to ensure they produce the graduates needed for the new jobs coming on stream.

In view of the recent closures, and the 250 job losses announced yesterday by Dell which is unfortunately a sign of things to come, the Minister with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment must look seriously at the area of upskilling and reskilling. While perhaps we would have thought that the only role of the Minister was to take up the baton after students have finished their leaving certificate and go on to third level, there is a new area at which the Minister must look, namely, the reskilling of mature individuals who possibly left the education system at the age of 20, 21 or 22 and went into good jobs, but who find the skills and education now required are different. While these workers are still possibly in their mid-40s and have much to contribute to the economy, they will need assistance in upskilling or, in many cases, reskilling.

The Bill is a positive development which will be of major benefit to students in the education system. Currently, there are four grant schemes operated by 66 bodies and an important aspect of the new grant scheme is that it will be operated by one body, the VECs.

One aspect of it which disappoints me a little is the timescale of the legislation. The Minister reported that it will the 2009-10 academic year before the new arrangements are put in place. While I would have liked to see that happen for the academic year 2008-09, it will not be possible administratively because the Department is already in the process of getting ready for the grant schemes for the new academic year. That said, I note that arrangements are being made by the Department and by individual authorities and bodies involved to have in place the operation of this legislation for June, July or August 2009 and I wish them well in making such arrangements.

The provision of student loans, which is a feature on the international scene, is an area I ask the Minister to examine. I am aware of cases where families, even with the assistance of grants, are not in a financial position to allow their children go to third level. Great sacrifices are being made by families and I commend those involved for allowing their children participate in third level education when the individuals themselves have not had that opportunity. Even where sacrifices are being made by families, I have found that some students are unable to do a particular course because of the cost involved in going to the college concerned. Rural students, in particular, who do not have the opportunity of staying local to do a particular course, are obliged to go to colleges in Dublin, Cork, Galway and elsewhere, and due to economic circumstances find themselves going to third level colleges closer to home because that is affordable. I ask the Minister to look at approving loans that the Department could possibly guarantee and which would afford those students another grant option in the form of a top-up, which is successful in some other countries.

There are 56,000 students currently availing of further education in Ireland and a large majority of those are availing of higher education grants. It is an investment in the economy and I welcome anything we can do to encourage, promote and enhance that.

While this Bill is welcome, I ask the Minister, at the earliest opportunity, to produce and outline the regulations she proposes to announce so that families and individual students know exactly where they stand. It is a positive Bill and I commend the Government on bringing it forward.

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