Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In the education section of the programme for Government the Government promised to establish "a new relationship with students" and also promised to improve accessibility to third level education. I wonder what the Taoiseach thinks in that context of the row that took place last week between students in Trinity College, who were forced to occupy college buildings over attempts to introduce absolutely extortionate repeat exam fees of €450; to increase on-campus student accommodation to €240 per week; to further increase, for the third or fourth year in a row, postgraduate fees and non-EU student fees as well as dramatic increases in registration fees in recent years. I went to Trinity College a couple of times last week and the students said their relationship with the college authorities was broken. They said trust had completely broken down and they were appalled at what this meant in terms of access, in particular for working class students, and they wanted to know that the Government and politicians would back the students in their fight against those extortionate fees.

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