Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. The future of third level funding is something we will have to grasp in the coming period. In recent years third level colleges have made it clear that, without additional funds, they cannot continue to provide a quality of education for the numbers of students that are likely to enter the system in future. So far, the Minister's response to the need for additional third level funding has been, unfortunately, to raise the registration fee against what he had promised during the last general election campaign. In many ways, that puts extreme pressure on families who are already finding it difficult to send their children to college. They are doing their best to cope with the expense of raising a family and running a household and many of them are outside the grant threshold.

The Hunt report makes it clear that we will need €500 million per year over the next ten years. When therefore can we expect clarity from the Minister on how he will fund the sector in future?

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