Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I again raise the need to enable higher education students studying outside this State to avail of the €1,000 reduction in student contribution fees. The Minister confirmed to me in a reply to parliamentary question that this was one measure of the package of measures to help households with the increased cost of living. Families here, regardless of their children's study location, have similar cost-of-living pressures. Students who have had to avail of courses outside this State should not be disadvantaged further by our failing to include them in this measure. I highlighted this issue last year regarding students studying in Northern Ireland and elsewhere who were denied this payment and were similarly denied the tax credit as well.

Whatever administrative obstacles exist to ensuring those two benefits are applied to all eligible students from our State should be removed without delay. It has to be within the capacity of the Government, if the will is there, to ensure some fairness for those students who, in many cases, have to study elsewhere because of an insufficient number of places on the courses of their choice in this State. If we are to improve and encourage student mobility, our administrative systems must adapt, change and ensure a level playing field for all students. This Government is quite rightly supporting a range of major capital projects in Northern Ireland, and presumably all such expenditure is within the proper Government financial procedures. That shows clearly that where there is a will, there is a way.

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