Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

The Minister is suggesting he might take away the free third level education with his comment there.

Yes, there are a couple of issues. It is a bad situation when Young Fine Gael was asking for a €1,500 reduction in fees and only a €500 reduction was given. The union of students in Ireland, AMLÉ, asked for a lot more and has expressed huge disappointment at what the Government has done. The dropout rate in college has increased by 15% in two years and 23% for students who are on the lower income levels. As I said, they are much more likely to drop out. The mental health toll on students is incredibly high. The increase in the fees will affect working class families and people on lower incomes more, as the Government has indicated itself. The SUSI grant eligibility will do very little to rectify that. One concrete thing the Government could have done was to maintain that €1,000 increase and it did not do it.

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