Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am uncomfortable with how repeat students in general are treated by the system because there can be a whole variety of reasons somebody starts one course and wishes to move to another. That is life. Things can happen in somebody's family life and in terms of health. There are reasons people have to move. I have an openness on that..

I spoke about a once-off reduction of €1,000, which is true. We have made a permanent reduction of €500 in fees for anyone earning less than €100,000 in terms of family income. That is a mechanism I want to build on in future budgets. Could the €500 figure change or the €100,000 figures go up a little more to make sure that two public servants married to each other do not fall just outside the gross income limit? We can consider things within that formula.

SUSI needs an overhaul. We need to make sure that the means test is not too mean. I want to take another look at that in advance of the budget. An overhaul of SUSI and continually trying to reduce the fees are the two areas on which I am going to focus. We will publish a cost of education paper in the autumn.

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