Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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104. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the means by which he intends to implement the programme for Government commitments regarding the cost of third level education; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37436/25]

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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105. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will reverse his decision to increase the student contribution fee for third level undergraduate students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37415/25]

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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107. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on his Department's plans for the reduction of the student contribution fee as per the commitments in the programme for Government. [37331/25]

Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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110. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will explain the rationale for the reported decision not to proceed with further reductions in the student contribution fee, in light of the commitment made in the programme for Government to reduce these fees over the lifetime of the Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37631/25]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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112. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to clarify his recent comments regarding the student contribution fee, and if he will give clarity on how much students and their families will be paying in September 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37646/25]

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Tá Ceisteanna Uimh. 104, 105, 107, 110 agus 112 grúpáilte.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Following on from the earlier questions, I again ask the Minister whether the fees will be €2,000 or €3,000 for the next academic year. I have had countless people, students and families, in touch with me to tell me that, if the fees are increased for the next academic year, they will not be able to afford them. This is wrong. It is not a position people should be put in. We need clarity from the Minister on this as soon as possible.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 104, 105, 107, 110 and 112 together.

I note that a number of Deputies have similar questions and that these have been grouped. We will probably go around the House to take supplementary questions.

As I have said a number of times this evening and over recent months, I am acutely conscious of the financial challenges facing students and of the need for the progressive implementation of measures to address costs as a barrier to education. I am quite alarmed to hear that people are telling the Deputy they are unsure whether they can afford college because the entire system of SUSI grants, fee supports, contributions and interventions is geared towards avoiding that situation. Very significant supports are available and the income threshold stands at an all-time historic high of €115,000, meaning your household income has to be greater than that for you not to get some kind of support. I do not know if the people the Deputy has mentioned are in that situation and are earning more than €115,000 but, if they are and cannot afford these fees, we may need to have a conversation about that. There are a lot of supports. We had this discussion earlier on. There is evidence that people are not claiming some of the supports that are available. They may not be aware of them and they are not applying for them. If that is the case, we can engage on that point to see what exactly is missing there that leads people not to avail of the supports they are entitled to.

As the House will be aware, almost all full-time undergraduate students have their tuition fees paid in full by the State. The free fees initiative has been there for some time and the Exchequer still pays for it every year. Almost half of all students have their student contribution fee paid in full or in part by the State. The threshold for those interventions has increased again this year. I mentioned that €115,000 is the highest income at which support is offered but there is a sliding scale under which people can get support at 100% of the student contribution, 50% or €500. The House will be aware that a temporary once-off reduction of €1,000 was introduced in the last three budgets. That was part of a cost-of-living package that was put together to support students and other sectors of society. I am very keen to continue to support measures like that but it has been confirmed in recent weeks that there will not be a cost-of-living ancillary package across Government this year so we will need to do something different in budget 2026. We need to look at a different policy approach and a different funding approach.

I hosted an event on the cost of education in early April to better inform that approach and to better understand the interventions that are necessary and what kind of measures would be most helpful and most impactful. I met with representative groups. I will continue that consultation over the summer. I met with the previous executives of student unions. I understand new executives will be coming in around this time. I look forward to meeting them over the coming weeks.

I reiterate my absolute commitment to all of the commitments of the programme for Government and not just one. We have had a lot of focus on one in recent days but the programme for Government includes a number of commitments relating to my Department. I will work through each one of them. A number of them have already been fulfilled. I will continue to work through them all. I will honour every single commitment insofar as I can. However, it is also important to realise that it is not feasible to deliver every programme for Government commitment in full in year one. That is important to realise. There are commitments that are spread over the lifetime of the Government, which is exactly how I will approach them. I am working my way through them. That will be challenging at times. It is stated that this is to be done in a financially sustainable manner. That is part of it. I do not cherry-pick. I take it as it is. However, I fully intend to address these commitments, including reducing the student contribution over the lifetime of the Government and bringing about a system that is not temporary, once-off or a question of "will they, won't they" every summer, as we have now and have had over the last three summers, but that is permanent, costed and sustainable and that will form part of the baseline Estimates going forward so that students have certainty about where it is going in the future. The interventions of recent years were certainly welcome but progressing in a permanent sustainable manner will better serve students and their families and give them the certainty they need.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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The comments the Minister made on national radio caused great uncertainty on this matter. We still do not have clarity on the issue nine days on. I will tell the Minister about the impact this uncertainty and the proposed hike is having on people. He said that he did not understand how people would not be able to afford this increase in fees. A mother in my constituency who has two children in college told me that she literally cried last Sunday morning when she heard the Minister on the radio. She said that finding another €2,000 for next year on top of everything else she is paying out seems undoable.

It is no good to her to hear Micheál Martin and Simon Harris on the radio saying they are going to reduce fees over the lifetime of the Government. She needs it now, or at the very least she needs things to stay as they are, not to increase. What does the Minister have to say in response to that mother and will he provide certainty to her and the thousands of students out there who would be affected by this?

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I have one thing to add. I represent Dublin Rathdown, and UCD is obviously a significant institution within Dublin Rathdown. The key recommendation of the students' union there, in last year's report on student accommodation, was that reducing the student contribution fee is the most effective way to support students and their families. I think that highlights where the students are coming from and what their expectations are.

Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I reiterate the worry and terror that the Minister's words have spread. I know he has mentioned the great stuff he is doing, but for these parents who are struggling and the students who are struggling to pay their own way through college, is there reassurance he can give to them? I understand that he is tied by the budget of the Government, and he does not want to speak too soon. As Deputy O'Hara said there are multiple people who woke up in terror and are struggling at the moment with everything going on. There is another thing in that regard. We spoke earlier about students struggling with accommodation and we saw the students up here. Another thing that the Minister for housing is bringing in relates to the granny flats and cabins in the garden. The proposed rules are that they are just for direct family members. That should be changed so they can be for anyone to live in, which would benefit students who are struggling to find accommodation.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Minister has spoken in great detail about the various supports that exist for students, but the issue people want clarity on and need to know about is the question of how much the student contribution will be in September. The reason they are asking that question is because of his comments on "This Week". He opened this Pandora's box, and he has the capacity to close it if he so wishes. He was not helped by the contribution of the Tánaiste and his liberal briefings across media over the past number of days suggesting he was going to do something. That has actually compounded the confusion. Parents and particularly students need to know how much they will pay in September. It is not okay for the Minister and his colleagues to spend the next three months saying it is the normal budgetary process and they cannot talk about this. He needs to give people clarification. He opened this question. He needs to answer it.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Part of me is surprised at the surprise, because I said this at parliamentary questions in February, March and April. I said it in the Irish Examiner, in The Irish Times and in other local radio interviews. I said it in multiple places, so I wonder why anyone feigns surprise. Of course, the general public do not tune into this Chamber, but there are spokespersons and people in the House, and those who follow. Deputy O'Gorman was a Minister who did the cost-of-living package in the previous Government, so he knows it was temporary. There should not be any surprise on his behalf. This is exactly the same situation as prevailed last year and the year before and the year before. In those situations, the €1,000 contribution rebate was not applied until October. It did not kick in in June, July or August. I remember getting representations from students and their families over the past couple of years, querying it myself and being told it was a budgetary matter. It did not get the same attention.

Deputy O'Gorman said earlier that I gave a straight answer. Maybe I should have fudged it and done the political thing of saying there is nothing to see here. I tried to be straight about it and perhaps I have learned a lesson, but if that is the case it is to be regretted that we have to fudge things to get through these interviews. That is regrettable. It is not how I do business. It is a fact that none of us knows, in any Department or any part of government, what our budget is for the year ahead, what we will have and what demands will be placed on that money. We cannot know that until October. What I can say, as I have said repeatedly, is that we already have for September multiple new schemes, benefits and thresholds. I have stated my absolute commitment to see through the programme for Government in full. There may be challenges about how we do that, but the job is to rise to challenges and meet them. I intend to do that and to see reductions to the student contribution fee in a financially sustainable way. That is the bit that gets least attention, but the parties were every bit as adamant that it be inserted into the programme for Government. I will see the programme for Government through to the letter.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I raised the case of a woman in my constituency, and I ask the Minister for a response to that particular case and the questions that woman has about how she is expected to afford an increase in fees. Students need to be able to plan and budget in advance for the upcoming academic year and they need certainty around this. I want to know because this is the second time in recent weeks that students have been thrown under the bus by the Government. We had the rent reforms recently, which are going to have a disproportionate impact on students. What does the Government have against students? Students cannot just magic up €1,000. My constituents are telling me that. I know people from across the State have been writing to the Minister in recent days telling him that. I urge the Minister to listen to students and their families, and outline how people like this woman in my constituency are supposed to afford an extra €2,000 for the next academic year.

Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I understand the constraints the Minister is under when it comes to the budget, and he is not 100% aware of what will be in his Department. I go back to my other question. I was wondering if he would clarify his opinion. He will obviously be looking at students in this. The huge burden they have at the moment is accommodation, especially students who are coming to visit and to live in Dublin. The Department of housing is bringing in measures to allow cabins in gardens to be developed. Is the Minister of the opinion that there should not be a restriction that these cabins should only be for direct family members? For example, Mrs. O'Brien has a house and an area where she can put in a cabin. Why should she only be allowed to allow a direct family member to live there, when a student can travel from counties Meath, Galway or Cork to Dublin and avail of that accommodation? It makes complete sense. I do not understand why we allow it just for direct family members.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Minister is right. I was in government when the cost-of-living measures in the area of the student contribution were agreed. That is why, whereas there is a lot on the programme for Government I am critical of, I welcomed the commitment in there to continue to reduce the student contribution fee over the lifetime of the Government. I took from that the clear meaning that every student in the country took, which was that this was a process that would see further reductions. What the Minister announced was a full-on increase of €1,000 that students are now dealing with. He talked about trying to be up front and honest. We then have to deal with the situation of his coalition colleagues. The Tánaiste is giving this broad stage wink to students like he will look after them in September. It is not fair to create this level of confusion. The Government has created the confusion, and the Minister can clarify it. It is not fair to ask people to wait three months.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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An Teachta Heneghan spoke about student accommodation and backyard cabins and such like. Regardless of whether I comment on my own brief, it would probably be unhelpful if I were to start commenting on the Minister for housing's brief. I hear what the Deputy is saying, and I will mention those points to the Minister. I am not across that section so it would not be appropriate for me to get into commentary on it. However, the Deputy highlights a point that ultimately the costs of education are multifaceted. There are fees, living costs, accommodation costs, transport costs and materials costs. We have been through this a few times in the House, but I will recap. One of the many ways that I hope to tackle the cost of education is by producing a cost of education paper. I met with students’ representatives in April in Croke Park.

I met the USI in March, again in April and again in June. I met many other representatives across the education system, including access officers and advocates for disadvantaged groups. From that stakeholder engagement, which is ongoing and on which I am open to submissions, I published a costs of education paper that sets out the choices. There are choices and costs but they are not just financial costs; there are opportunity costs. If we do this, we cannot do that. Those are the choices we have to make.

Among them are choices about student accommodation. I brought to Cabinet a fortnight ago a blueprint for student accommodation. I want to publish by the end of this year a student accommodation strategy. Ultimately, the solution to finding comfortable, affordable units for students is building student accommodation at scale. We have 116 beds coming on stream in Maynooth and 493 recently announced by UCD with support and funding from my Department. DCU is in a process before its board investigating its tenders. Those are the first three projects coming on stream in the near future. We have many other projects around the country. I am seeking significant funding in the national development plan to invest further in purpose-built student accommodation.

The Deputy mentioned people travelling further having a greater burden. In the SUSI scheme, there is the adjacent grant and the non-adjacent grant. Those who live further from their college qualify for a higher maintenance grant, as is right and proper because it costs more to get there.

Deputy O'Hara talked of a family in his constituency. I am happy to take that discussion offline. If he brings me that case, I will investigate it. That goes for any Deputy in the House if there are particular cases they are struggling with. Let us see whether, with the supports and schemes already in place, some people are falling through the cracks. If so, why? If not, great, let us get them the support they are entitled to. There may be a flaw that means they are not getting support. I hear a lot of hardship cases. I hear them in my constituency and have for years, long before I was in this Department. Now I am in a position to do something about it. If Deputies find gaps in the system or anomalies, tell me so I can fix them.