Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her time and her work ethic; she has been here for a significant length of time and I am sorry that more Members have not joined us with regard to this higher education discussion. I am not the Minister for Education and I will not go back on that but the questions asked by the Deputy in respect of my own brief are fair and I am more than happy to answer them.

I doubt the Deputy meant it like this, but she commented that Ministers should not hide behind partners in education. When the Minister refers to partners in education she is talking about teachers, SNAs, parents' associations and student groups. The Deputy would probably be the first up on her feet, and rightly so, if the Minister did not engage with the partners in education. The Deputy is worried about the welfare of teachers, SNAs and students, and the views of parents. We do need certainty around this. I heard the Minister, Deputy Foley, today say that it is absolutely her intention to hold the leaving certificate examinations. I also heard the Minister state that we need to detail exactly how that is going to happen. From the perspective of my Department I would very much welcome that detail. I know it will be forthcoming in the coming weeks. The Minister for Education has established an advisory group and my Department sits on that advisory group. This is the exchange of information that the Deputy has, rightly, been getting at in her questions.

I accept there were difficulties, stresses and errors around the calculated grades but from my Department's perspective, even with all the difficulties we had with calculated grades, we did manage to provide every single student who had an error with their first-choice place. Many doubted that we would. I thank my sector, the Department and all the stakeholders for the work they did. I use this as an indication of the can-do attitude that we will apply to try to help students as they prepare for the transition from secondary school to third level.

The Deputy asked about extra places this year. The Deputy is concerned that all of the extra places that we secured last year were a one-off. She was right to say that but we have secured them again for this year. We put a lot of extra places into the system last year. That was not just a blip and they are now in the system this year. I have also received funding in the budget for more than 2,000 additional higher education places this year to deal with the demographic pressures.

As for the student nurses, the Deputy will be aware of the situation that arose when I was the Minister for Health whereby clinical placements could not go ahead. We offered student nurses an opportunity to take up a contract as healthcare assistants. They did an absolutely Trojan job and we would have been absolutely lost without them. I understand that my colleague, the Minister for Health, has received a report he commissioned on the issue of supports for student nurses. It is for the Minister and the HSE to act on that and make recommendations on it.

On the €250 credit I would be very happy to provide the Deputy with a breakdown, institution by institution and I commit to doing that. From the information I have the SUSI students got the additional fund in December. In real time today, while coming in here, I see that Trinity College Dublin and UCD are announcing the dates they will credit students' accounts. I am satisfied that this is rolling out well. The Deputy referred to a student having to wait until September but I do not see it as that. I see that in the first instance, this €250 can be offset against the registration fee. If the student has paid the registration fee in part then it will be knocked off the remainder of the registration fee that has to be paid this year. If the student had paid the registration in full and is going back to college for another year in September, then he or she can chose to knock it off the fee payable then. It is a real reduction in real terms for students and their registration fee. Of course, if the student is not in one of those categories he or she will not miss out and will receive a cash payment.

On the issue of student accommodation, I will take up that case from the University of Limerick and I am very disappointed to hear that. My view on student accommodation is very clear; if it is college owned or campus owned the college should refund it, unless the student is using the accommodation. We should bear in mind that quite a few thousand students have taken up that option, as is their choice.

I acknowledge the Deputy's support for the issue of the Erasmus programme. I am really pleased that we have been able to put in place measures to make sure that students of all ages in Northern Ireland do not get left behind by the extremely regrettable decision of the British Government for the UK and Northern Ireland not to participate in the Erasmus programme. They talk of developing a new and better programme and I wish them well. I believe Erasmus is an excellent programme. Any student in Northern Ireland can avail of that by registering, on a temporary basis, in a Republic of Ireland higher education institution. Even as I am in here, my management board is meeting virtually with the management board in the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, which has responsibility for higher education. I am very clear with regard to Northern Ireland students and their rights under the Good Friday Agreement quite properly to be Irish citizens, and therefore to benefit from the same rules and fees that Irish citizens benefit from in the Republic.

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