Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

Is the precise number known? Figures available to me indicate that almost half of the 9,000 postgraduate students in the State have their fees paid or receive a minimum maintenance grant. I have received information that cuts to postgraduate courses will prevent some of the country's brightest and most capable young people from accessing higher education. This does not simply pertain to teachers because for some masters degree courses fees of approximately €6,000 are charged. Again, those who are from low or middle income family backgrounds are the students who will have difficulty in moving on in their education. One is told continually that fully-qualified people are needed to take up the opportunities afforded by the new knowledge economy and so on. While, on the one hand, one is told there is a crisis in this regard, on the other, supports are not being given to people to enable them to move on in their education. Some of the people who attended today's meeting of the Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education to discuss the same matter also made the worrying point that while the State is saying one thing, it is doing another. While such education costs a lot of money, rather than bringing in people from abroad to fill the skills void and take up many of the available jobs, it would be cheaper in the long run.

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