Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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9. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps his Department is taking to address the challenges faced by young carers and young adult carers pursuing courses at third level. [14632/25]

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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This is a very serious issue. My question relates to the situation of young adult carers in higher and further education.

We had a comprehensive debate on the more broad topic of young carers and young adult carers in this House last week. My question relates to the Department's efforts, schemes and steps to support young carers and young adult carers to access education, stay in it and benefit from it.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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This is a very serious issue which I take on board. It is one I am keen to progress. It is governed by the national access plan for higher education 2022-28 which sets out the ambition for an inclusive and diverse higher education sector. An important component of that plan is its recognition and naming of additional priority groups which are considered marginalised or disadvantaged. This includes students who are carers. Many supports are provided which seek to address the struggles and challenges that arise. The principal financial support is the student grant scheme provided by my Department. The special rate of maintenance grant is the highest rate of maintenance grant available and is targeted at students most in need. I confirm that carer’s allowance and carer’s benefit are both eligible social welfare payments for that special rate of maintenance grant. In addition to carer’s allowance, the carer’s support grant and the domiciliary care allowance are classified as income disregards. These payments are not included when calculating reckonable income for the purposes of student grant eligibility. The student assistance fund is also available to students experiencing exceptional financial need. It is designed to support students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds with ongoing needs for financial support and to provide emergency financial assistance for other students.

My Department also recognises the need to offer support for more flexible forms of learning. Last year, a new part-time fee scheme for specified undergraduate courses was launched. The aim is to provide additional flexibility of course provision to students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and may not, due to their particular circumstances, be in a position to study full time. My Department is committed to examining diverse and flexible pathways. Some include non-traditional options such as Springboard+ programmes, microcredits where you can take mini courses and stack them together to achieve particular qualifications and tertiary programmes where you can commence study in an FET college or institute closer to home with the option of progressing to a more traditional university setting in later years. These are all attempts to make it flexible and accommodate those who may struggle more to access traditional courses.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as an bhfreagra sin. I thank the Minister for his response. The most recent census in 2022 tells us that there are almost 5,000 young carers in this State. Undoubtedly, the number of young people and young adults providing care is much greater as it often goes unreported, unsupported and unacknowledged. By unsupported I mean people who do not avail of many of those payments. The number of young people providing the highest level of care, more than 43 hours a week, doubled between 2016 and 2022. From speaking to young carers, social workers, social care workers and advocates it is clear the increase is down to a chronic lack of services, ranging from access to healthcare, disability services and supports, underfunding of the wider social care sector and mental health services and drug and alcohol strategies that have never been properly resourced. Not only financial supports are needed. Academic and social supports are needed as well as the communications piece so that young carers and young adults providing care know they can avail of supports in their chosen universities or colleges.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for the elaboration. It is clear there are supports available. It is about accessing those supports and for students to know they are available and make sure they are kept under review so that they can respond to emerging challenges, unforeseen challenges and circumstances and continue engagement with advocates in particular and young carers and young adult carers. Another related factor is older carers - mature students, people returning to education who provide care or who during the course of accessing further education find themselves having to provide care. It is important that while we talk about young carers and young adult carers, we also have regard to mature students who perform a caring role as well and make sure every step possible can be taken to ensure they can access and stay in further and higher education and avail of the full benefit of that education.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I will not repeat myself but all the measures I introduced in terms of flexibility, financial supports, non-traditional routes to education and geographically distributed access points, including those close to the learner's home, will contribute to and support that endeavour. I hope they are already assisting learners.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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We will now move to Question No. 11 from Deputy Ó Snodaigh.