Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)

I commend the students who gathered outside the gates this evening and the students who are here this evening, including the new student union representatives, for pushing back against this desperate situation. Parents and students need to know how much they will be paying in nine weeks time. They need to know this now. People have to budget. Members of this Government do not seem to get this but my constituents do. Ger in east Mayo has twin daughters. She says that she cannot choose between her twins, who are both young talented women. What a position for parents to be in, having to choose between their children. Then there is Joe who in his third year of global commerce at the University of Galway. He says that students were promised by Simon Harris that there could potentially be plans to abolish student fees in the programme for Government. That is what was promised but it looks like that promise is now with the others in the pre-election commitment dustbin. Nicola in south Mayo also wrote to me explaining that although a single parent with two children, one of whom is autistic, because she is a full-time nurse in Mayo University Hospital she does not receive any kind of social welfare. She is fearful that her child benefit and maintenance payments will both stop in August, just when her youngest, results pending, hopes to be heading off to college. All of these are hard-working people, contributing to society in a range of ways.

Another cohort of students I want to talk about today are the children of internationally recruited healthcare workers. I spoke to one today at the INMO conference. Her child came here to Ireland to live and she has to pay international fees of up to €19,000 per year. That is totally wrong.

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