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

I just pointed out a number of European countries where they do not have a contribution fee. That is the standard we should reach rather than having the highest fees. The level of investment per student in this country for most categories of students is less than the amount of public investment into horses. I like horses but I prefer students. I think they are more important and they add something very significant over their lifetimes additional to Exchequer revenues and so on. We need to dramatically increase the investment. Where could the Minister get it? I will give him a simple idea. I have said this many times. Some €700 million and rising is going in research and development tax relief to a handful of multinational corporations that are already supremely profitable. Has anybody done a cost-benefit analysis of whether that €700 million is better going to Google, Facebook and Apple or to our public universities? I bet no one has but we should. I think we would find it would be a lot more socially and economically beneficial to this country.

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