Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. It is always good to have an opportunity to comment on yet another road sign on Fianna Fáil's road back to outright populism. There is no doubt that the creation of SUSI has caused undue hardship for students. There was a lack of sufficient planning and apportioning of adequate human resources to cope with the volume of applications.

That is plain for all to see. The Minister has acknowledged the problems that have been created and has expressed his regret. He is acting to rectify the problem. Extra staff have been hired and targets have been set in order to process all successful applications by December. I am confident that the Minister, Deputy Quinn, grasps the gravity of the problem and is putting in place measures to fix it.

The introduction of a single awarding body for third level grants to replace 66 awarding bodies was never going to be easy. That said, there should have been better preparation and planning on behalf of City of Dublin VEC to ensure that it was capable of delivering the service for which it had pitched. I raised the point directly with representatives of SUSI and City of Dublin VEC at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection yesterday afternoon. I am confident the problem will be fixed and that SUSI will be in a much stronger position and will have learned from the current crisis.

The previous system was not fit for purpose. All of us in this House have represented people who were let down by late and inefficient processing. We now have a single grant-awarding body. SUSI has got off to a shaky start, but once these problems are ironed out we will be in a much stronger position in future years. I question Fianna Fáil's audacity in tabling a motion calling on the Government to refrain from implementing further cuts to the education budget and further increases in third level registration fees when its members are intimately aware of the scale of the economic crisis they created for this country. It is an astounding example of opportunism, but people will see through it. People will know it is opportunism when Fianna Fáil, the party that brought down the economy, calls for no further increases in third level registration fees. This is despite the fact that Fianna Fáil itself increased the annual cost of attending college from €190 in 1997 to €2,000 in 2011. People will know it is opportunism when Fianna Fáil, the party that suppressed 500 language support posts and removed 47 rural co-ordinator teaching posts in rural DEIS schools, calls for no more cuts in the education sector. People will know it is opportunism when Fianna Fáil, the party that signed this country up to a four-year agreement to get our finances in order, call for a halt to any further cuts or tax increases in any particular sector. The tragic reality of our situation is that cuts now need to be made and taxes need to be increased to restore our economic sovereignty. It is left to the Government to make cuts and to introduce taxes in a manner that minimises the pain as much as possible. The motion placed before us this evening does nothing to help this country tackle its economic difficulties; it provides no credible solutions and no credible alternatives. As a party, Fianna Fáil made a commitment to provide credible and constructive opposition, but I see none of that reflected in the motion.

As we face into one of the toughest budgets in the history of the State, with inevitable further cuts in the education budget, we must look at areas in which changes can and should be made. One such area that demands attention is bankers' pay and pensions. The news last weekend that a new executive began work in the IBRC this week on a salary of €500,000 was like a dagger to the morale of the ordinary Irish citizen. With salaries and pensions for executives still at exorbitant levels, the public are quite rightly seething with anger. Action must be taken in this regard in the forthcoming budget. We must take action, whether through a surcharge or a super-levy on the incomes of senior bankers and others who have retired on massive pensions. The people of this country will not stand for further cuts in education and other front-line services unless we are seen to tackle those issues and deliver a fair budget. The Labour Party is committed to doing that. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, is working hard to craft a fair budget for education but, unfortunately, he is distracted from that work by having to deal with the populist opportunism contained in this Fianna Fáil motion.

See this speech in context