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

I do not need to remind the Tánaiste about the very significant hardship and sacrifice that huge numbers of people have undergone as a result of the Covid pandemic. With a motion that People Before Profit is putting before the House tonight, we are proposing that for many of those who have made that sacrifice and suffered that stress, anxiety and hardship, we need to offer them a better future as we move out of Covid, and in particular in the area of education and access to higher and further education and apprenticeships. That is critical for the 80,000 people who have recently applied to the Central Applications Office, CAO, such as the leaving certificate students and so on. It is critical to the tens of thousands of people in third level who have seen their education experience greatly diminished over the past year, to thousands and thousands of people who may have to reskill and retrain because their livelihoods have been decimated as a result of the pandemic, and for the ability of our society to thrive and prosper socially and economically after Covid-19.

It seems, however, that we are not offering that better future to all of those people as we move out of the Covid pandemic. Rather, we are putting multiple obstacles and hurdles in their way as they try to access higher and further education or apprenticeships and complete their education to the highest possible level. Some 80,000 people will apply to the CAO, 25,000 of whom will be disappointed and potentially demoralised because we do not provide enough places in higher and further education or enough apprenticeships.

Our third level students and postgraduate students are suffering the highest fees levied anywhere in the European Union now that the UK has left. Many of our postgraduate students are living in absolute poverty on miserable stipends while suffering extortionate fees. Many of those who want to return to education to reskill or retrain are blocked from doing so by these high fees and the cost of accessing further education later in life.

The Tánaiste's Government has tabled an amendment to our motion. I appeal to him to withdraw it and to say that this is the time for courage, vision and payback for those looking for a future on the other side of Covid. We ask the Government to allow open access to third level and higher education and apprenticeships, to scrap the fees that make life so difficult for our students and to give decent supports to people in postgraduate education who are trying to do the research we need, and which we will need even more after the Covid crisis.

See this speech in context