Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to join my colleague, the Minister for Education, in speaking on this motion.

I hope the passion I hear from the Opposition party on reducing student fees will also be delivered in the North. In having an honest debate about college fees, I have to note the cost of student fees in Northern Ireland, where that party has been in government and held the position of Minister of Education, is today the equivalent of €5,500 per student per year. There is a student loan system in place in Northern Ireland that leaves students heavily burdened on leaving college, having to pay back debt at a time when they would like to be saving for their future. That party's members might tell me the way Northern Ireland is funded is different but when they campaigned in the last elections, they did not commit to reducing by 1 cent or 1 pence the student contribution fee or to reforming the student loan system. It is important that students who follow these debates look at what that party does when it has a chance to govern and what it committed to doing in Northern Ireland in the last election, which was absolutely nothing when it came to reducing fees, which are higher by €2,500 per student per year than they are in the Republic. That point is important in the interest of context.

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