Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has critiqued the decision he made last week simply to give certainty for this year. He said he agreed with me and would work with me on the issue. As the Minister said, this is an administrative measure and I urge him strongly to take a unilateral administrative decision to allow students from Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom the same status as Irish and EU citizens from now on, whatever academic year in which they start. It would be really positive and it would not be any skin off anybody else's nose but it would certainly indicate our education system is open and we do not want a hard border. Fianna Fáil suggested this a year and a half ago and I simply cannot understand why it is done on an ad hocbasis every year.

If a person is thinking of going to university in his or her own jurisdiction, that person may make a late decision. If the person is thinking of going to a different jurisdiction, the decision will not be made six weeks before the Central Applications Office, CAO, deadline, and it will not be made just because the Minister has made this decision in January. I suspect anybody thinking of coming to the South or from Britain would have made such a decision some time ago. Perhaps the Minister's announcement would have been too late. If he had taken Fianna Fáil's proposal, this would not have been an issue at all.

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