Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are powerful arguments against income-contingent loans. We can consider the evidence from the UK, where 75% of students are expected to not pay off student debt and combined student debt now exceeds €100 billion. Those are incredible figures. We had an excellent study from Dr. Charlie Larkin from Trinity College Dublin and Dr. Shaen Corbet. Dr. Larkin's report, Public Education and Civic Responsibility in a Constrained Financial Environment, highlighted the fact that national debt would increase by approximately €10 billion over the first ten years if an income-contingent scheme was operated. Senator Bacik of the Labour Party has a motion in the Seanad on this exact subject and I have advocated that we would follow the French, Scottish and German model. The Minister and I represent constituencies where there are problems of access and there are parishes, as he knows, with less than 15% or 20% of people going to college, which is totally unacceptable. We do not want to make things harder for those people. We are an emigration nation and we do not want our children to emigrate.

See this speech in context