Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I welcome any opportunity to ease the financial burden on students. We need to lower the high student fees. Our success story for further education would be that nobody would have to be awake at night worrying about whether he or she could send a child to college. We have to make it affordable and examine people's real-life financial circumstances. We cannot have circumstances in which people who are very capable of doing all types of third level courses must make a decision not to do one because of the financial impact on their family. The hardship fund is one way of addressing this. I am aware that the Minister will acknowledge that this is only a tiny part of the journey we need to travel.

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