James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with any of that. That is why my Department is rolling out multiple diverse and more flexible pathways and financial supports and also non-financial supports. I spoke about the variety of other grant aids and the maintenance grant and how various social protection payments are disregarded from those grants to ensure there is no loss of income for people who take up a place. In addition, on the non-financial aspect, I spoke about Springboard+, microcredentials and tertiary programmes which are all new innovations. A lot them did not exist a couple of years ago until the Department was created and began to examine these areas in more detail. There is also the part-time fee scheme which allows fee supports under the Student Support Act to be available to students studying part time. That is another new innovation; it was introduced in recent years as part of this Department. They are all opportunities to acknowledge full time education is not an option for everybody and attempt to meet the learner on their own terms and to widen the pool of people availing of higher education.

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