Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I find myself fundamentally in agreement with the Deputy. To be blunt and honest here, we had to start somewhere and we started at the €3,000 fee. Any student linked to the €3,000 undergraduate fee benefits from the €1,000 reduction. Do we want to do more? Yes. Do we need to do more in respect of part-time students? We absolutely do for the reasons the Deputy has said. There are many people in society with a variety of backgrounds who will either need to access education in a part-time or blended way or it will suit them better to do so.

At the moment there is a policy contradiction in place. We encourage people to access part-time education but then they cannot access, for example, the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, student fees. We have an immediate body of work underway as part of our Funding the Future implementation group, where Professor Tom Collins is looking specifically at the criteria and rules that could be arranged for part-time students in accessing SUSI, for example. That could be a potential game changer for many part-time students in Ireland. It will be a priority body of work for me and my Department in 2023 to try to make progress on that in advance of the next budget.

See this speech in context