Dáil debates

Thursday, 19 November 2020

Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science: Statements

 

3:50 pm

Photo of Gary GannonGary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am stepping in for her at short notice on this occasion. I thank both the Minister and Minster of State for attending today wish them the very best in what is an incredibly important portfolio. Some of the issues I will raise have already been touched on so I will try not to overlap and will try to develop some of them in my own way.

I welcome the once-off Covid payment of €250 for full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is very welcome and will alleviate some of the stress on some of the students, but I recognise it does not go far enough in some instances. In particular, there has been an omission in respect of part-time students who do not avail of it, and I would like to see if we can potentially address that. Perhaps the payment should not be a once-off and the Government could add an additional €250 in the second semester, which again would go some way to alleviating a lot of the burdens which have been placed on third level students at the moment.

On the issue of SUSI, which has been touched on quite well already by some of my colleagues, the Minister has committed to reviewing SUSI and I very much welcome that news. What plans are there for the scale of the review and has any consideration been given to the engagement of students in it? I am speaking not only of students who have successfully gone through the SUSI process but also those who contact our offices having not had such a positive experience of SUSI and who may not have been successful in the process.

Their voices are necessary. I am contacted quite regularly by students, as I am sure other Deputies are, on various issues related to SUSI. I acknowledge the team on SUSI is absolutely fantastic and in our engagement with them they are always quick and prompt in their responses, and probably more so than most other Departments, I am guaranteed to speak to someone in SUSI who will get back to me and I commend this. However, a lot of problems remain and they are legislative problems that we can address through working collaboratively in the House. I will bring forward legislation in this regard in the coming months.

SUSI has no ability to classify as independent students under the age of 23. This creates a lot of issues for people who contact me. They may be 22 and parents themselves. They may be estranged from their parents. I cannot ask SUSI to consider them as adults in their own right. This is an omission. This is further exacerbated by students not being able to be reclassified as dependents at any age unless they break their education for three years or re-enter education after a five-year break. This is a flaw in the system and we can work together to address it.

The legislation assumes that all students have family supports, such as a stable place to live, and it fails to acknowledge cases where students under the age of 23 may not live at home for positive reasons or negative reasons such as estrangement. It actively discourages students from becoming independent. The burden of providing proof of a change in circumstances for students, such as one parent leaving the home, can be incredibly confusing to navigate and places an emotional and financial burden on students. An example has already been given of solicitor fees. This is a little bit embarrassing for the students who come forward with it and we can address this.

My colleague, Deputy Nash, raised a Noteworthy publication but I might develop it. Noteworthy published a three-part article stemming from a six-month investigation by journalist Maria Delaney that revealed more than 11,200 lecturers are on temporary or casual contracts in Ireland's IT and university sector, in precarious employment with poor pay. As is too often the case, this is not only a worker issue but a gender issue. Only this year was the glass ceiling broken when the University of Limerick appointed Professor Kerstin Mey as its new president. Professor Mey becomes the first woman to be appointed head of any Irish university, breaking a 428-year tradition. While this is progress and welcome, at the same time the gender equality gap in our higher education sector is increasing and not decreasing. In 2019, 71% of women worked in part-time temporary academic jobs in universities and the figure for institutes of technology was 63%. Over the course of the pandemic, there has been an increase in papers authored by men, a repercussion of female researchers having to juggle other responsibilities, potentially childcare and the housework of academia as Dr. Theresa O'Keeffe, the head of sociology in UCD, pointed out, to describe duties such as academic teaching and administration, which is disproportionately given to female students.

I want to highlight several issues that we might be able to address quickly. Anyone who has worked, as I have, in higher education access and outreach education, knows that the burden of getting paperwork associated with the higher education access route and the disability access route to education is often cumbersome. During the pandemic it will be especially difficult. We need to work with higher education institutions to alleviate this and provide some degree of flexibility if we can.

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