Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The issue is that there are young people in schools in this country who were born and have grown up in this country and who, because of a racist referendum in 2004 and the legislation introduced on foot of it the following year, do not have Irish citizenship. As a result of this, they do not have an automatic entitlement to free fees under the SUSI scheme. This may have been an academic question until now but some of those young people are now 15, knocking on the door of 16, and very soon will be wanting to go to college. The annual fee in University College Cork to do nursing is €4,106 for someone who is an EU national and €16,264 for someone who is not. These young people are going to be effectively barred in the vast majority of cases from a third level education unless something is done about this as a matter of urgency. Will the Minister comment on the situation I have outlined in that example?

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