Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the Minister said he will try his best to get this but this €307 million deficit was first raised in 2016. The Irish Universities Association, IUA, has said it will not fund pay increases. Has this been sorted? That also lends to this deficit. The austerity programme introduced in the State punished ordinary people and bailed out the banks and the bondholders, and it caused increasing hardship for many of the most vulnerable of our citizens. It is incredible that it is still causing hardship today.

The first Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science promised to reverse the cuts and address the funding gap. This was Simon Harris, and there have been two other Ministers with this portfolio since and nothing has been done. We have an ongoing cost-of-living crisis in the State and yet, hard-pressed parents are asked to shell out for student contributions to try to give their children a good education. Universities have, in some cases, increased the cost of student accommodation to try to bring in funds. This puts further economic strain on students and their parents.

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