Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for his questions. Regarding the July stimulus, I agree that it has to be two-sided. One side has to concern economic stimulus, but the other side has to be about the individual citizens of our country and how we can help them. I assure the Deputy that there will be a focus in the July stimulus on helping to get people back to learning and into apprenticeships and on the many other ways in which we can help people to get their lives back on track through utilising our public services and including our further education, training and higher education sector.

Turning to the issue of student costs, this is an area that needs significant overhaul and reform. The programme for Government makes very clear commitments to not increasing the costs. Deputy Gannon asked me to confirm that earlier today and I am happy to do so. I want to look at how we can better support students, but my first absolute priority between now and September is getting colleges back up and running and getting students back into learning.

We will then have the budgetary process whereby we can look at how we can further address the costs facing students and the student supports we have in place.

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