Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That confuses me in a different kind of way. I am not suggesting that the Minister is not outlining the facts but if the money coming from Government for fees is increasing, surely there should be some kind of conditionality that the fees charged to students decrease. It is my understanding that the fees will increase again next year. That is what students have told me.

The reality is that the cost of these fees has a corrosive effect on diversity in the medical vocation. The cost of fees continues to make medicine and the studying of medicine a privilege. It is, of course, a privilege but it should not be something that is almost an elitist privilege rather than something that should be available to everybody. There are more people studying medicine now but older people are trying to study medicine and find it-----

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