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

Although the student unions do not have all the figures, I spoke to them this morning and they reckon that more people dropped out of college last year than ever before because of accommodation costs and the cost-of-living crisis. That is their estimate. In University College Cork last year, there were record numbers of students going to food banks at the beginning of term. Such were the numbers and so desperate were the students for food that, according to one report, all the food in the food bank was gone in 48 minutes. Imagine how much worse it will be with the cost-of-living crisis?

It is unacceptable that students are paying €1,000, €1,200, €1,400 in accommodation costs. It is madness to impose any transport costs on them. We want people to go to college. We should get rid of fees, full stop. There is no justification for having college fees. There are fees in private schools and in our two-tier education system, but we should not have fees at all for education, be it primary, secondary or third level.

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