Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the students and thank them for being here. I want them to know that we are going to put an education system in place that means they can get to wherever they want in life. I urge them please to join in a conversation about broader educational opportunities, university, further education, apprenticeships - there are so many different ways of getting where they want to go. I thank them and welcome them to the Dáil.

A key priority for me, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and everybody in this House is reducing the cost of education. I hope my comments have not made the students leave. Maybe they have gone to sign up for the apprenticeships.

We have already taken action on the matters raised by Deputy Boyd Barrett. I am sure he will welcome it. We abolished the post-leaving certificate course, PLC, levy. There was a €200 per year levy to do a PLC course. We were telling people to go back to education and do a PLC course and then we were charging them for the privilege. We abolished the levy with effect from September. That has been welcomed across the sector. The Deputy will also know that we introduced for the first time ever a fund called "mitigating against education disadvantage". For the first time ever, we are providing funds to community education projects including in his own constituency and including laptops and sensory rooms. It funded over 500 projects in 2020 and 600 projects in 2021. We have made it a permanent part of the landscape.

We introduced apprenticeship bursary schemes targeted at supporting under-represented groups including female participation in apprenticeships. We will make further progress on this in budget 2023 in October. We are working to reduce and remove financial barriers. The Deputy is right that this is not just about the cost of living, although that is an important part. It is also about the skills needs of our country. I believe we can do more in the budget.

See this speech in context