Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

In the face of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and a student accommodation crisis that has seen more students and families forced to pay upwards of €14,000 for a single year's accommodation, and despite having contested the general election on a platform of reducing college fees, the first action the Government took was to announce an increase of college fees of €1,000 per year. Now, the Government is flying the kite that it may only put up the fees by €500, no doubt expecting plaudits on budget day from those whom the Government is only screwing over by half as much as it had originally planned. Sinn Féin has called for fees to be scrapped. Will the Minister meet this commitment? Will the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government do this or is helping students something it only talks about during elections?

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