Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also think we need to look at the SUSI Act. To be honest, whoever is the Minister and whoever is in government, it is too prescriptive to have this in primary legislation. If we look at the SUSI Act as compared with some of the social welfare Acts, the Minister for Social Protection, whoever he or she is, has a flexibility through regulation whereas, frankly, the primary legislation is too prescriptive for us to respond in real time to the issues that can arise. That is my view and it is something I would like to see us address together.

We are learning as we go and we have to be very honest in this regard. We are trying to do something very new. We are dealing with students who have often been locked out of our third-level education system. Some will come with Department of Social Protection supports, some will come with health service, day service and HSE supports, and some will come with neither or both of them. All of them, though, will enter courses that have been specifically designed to meet the needs of students with intellectual disabilities. All of the programmes that have applied for funding have been allowed, as part of their funding request, to seek some of that funding for the financial, pastoral and educational supports for students, including supports for travel costs, personal assistants and so on.

On the employment piece, the Deputy is correct. We intend to do a piece of work on that to make sure that when people with a disability come out of third-level education, they are also linked in with employment opportunities.

See this speech in context