Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

The question of how funding for student supports, including free fees, can best be deployed is a pertinent one against this background. Can we as a society continue to justify the expenditure of millions of euro from within the finite resources available for student supports to meet the costs of free fees for the children of those in the highest income brackets when, at the same time, all the evidence tells us that those at the other end of the economic spectrum continue to be excluded from third level education by virtue of, among other factors, inadequate supports?