Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education has found that our third level sector badly needs a long-term funding strategy. It has stated that the sector needs additional investment of approximately €1 billion by 2030 and that we need to start taking steps immediately to address that need. Unfortunately, the Government has kicked the expert group's report to touch. We propose to take immediate steps in the right direction to address this funding deficit.

In this motion, we propose to increase the national training fund levy on employers by a mere 0.1% and to legislate to allow the proceeds of the national training fund to be used to pay for higher education. We have already drafted the necessary legislation for this measure which would raise €67.1 million in 2017 alone. Although the measure we are proposing is modest, the sum of money it would raise is not. It would see employers pay a slightly higher contribution towards the cost of third level, which is something that has been recognised as necessary by IBEC and other employer bodies. There should be little resistance to this proposal. We feel it is a no-brainer.

The additional money that would accrue from this measure could be used for three purposes. First, it could be used to increase funding to the third level sector in line with demographic growth, thereby ensuring class sizes do not get larger as student numbers increase. Second, funding of €10 million could be ring-fenced for the development of technological universities in Dublin, Munster, the south east and Connacht-Ulster. To date, such funding has been top-sliced from the funding available for all colleges. We believe a dedicated funding stream is needed. Third, a fund of €30 million could be set aside to be invested in minor capital works and equipment across our third level colleges. These proposals would not fix all the problems in the third level sector, but they would represent an important start.

We also need to work to redress the imbalance in staffing levels within our third level sector. Teaching staff and, perhaps in a less visible manner, support services in non-academic grades are under intense pressure. We need to start on a path which will see our third level sector invested with sufficient funding and sufficient workers. As we all know, college gives young people incredible and sometimes life-changing opportunities. No young person should miss out on such opportunities because of an inability to pay.

As well as asking companies to pay a little more towards the costs of third level education, we think that as the economy improves, it is time for the State to bear a greater share of these costs. The financial struggles of young people are not confined to their entry to college. They are week-to-week concerns for many students and families as they try to get by. Students can struggle with financial hardship throughout their college years for a variety of reasons. Students with disabilities often have unexpected costs that other students do not have to face. We need to increase funding to colleges to meet the requirements of demographic growth - this has been costed at €21 million - and to ensure funding is available to the student assistance fund and the fund for students with disabilities.

When in government we expanded apprenticeships beyond the focus solely on construction-related trades and developed 21st-century apprenticeships in 25 new areas, including catering, financial services and information and communications technology. This has allowed many women to participate in apprenticeships to a significant degree for the first time. However, as Deputy Burton has stated, a great deal more remains to be done in this area.

We are keen to guarantee the funding required to fully roll out all apprenticeships for all our young people, especially our young women. We believe the number of places in the highly successful JobsPlus programme should be increased by 2,000 to help more young people secure employment. We proposed a €10 increase in jobseeker's payments to those under 25 years of age, along with an increase of the back-to-education allowance for young people to €188 per week. Combined with our proposals to reintroduce postgraduate grants, these proposals will provide over 10,000 young people with high-quality opportunities to prepare for sustainable employment.

Our motion is only a first step. However, if implemented, it would be a confident first step towards improving our education system.

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