David Norris (Independent)

Young people with such initiative give hope to our country by being able to turn a problem into an advantage. I spoke last night at a dinner in Trinity College for the disability programme that provides access to the college. The students who attended the dinner were really inspiring. One of them, Rosaleen McDonagh, has been a candidate in my constituency on several occasions. She refused to allow her disadvantages as a Traveller woman in a wheelchair to disbar her from education. I wanted to start with the positives. I praise Donogh O'Malley and all the rest who freed up access. By 2020, if things go right, approximately 70% of leaving certificate students will go on to third level education. That is extraordinary and marvellous.

We cannot rely on clichés. It is not sufficient to talk about people who are wonderfully educated. It is blather. Dr. Craig Barrett punctured that little bubble for us. We are not as great as we think we are. We need to face the problem realistically. If we address it, we will be in a position to capitalise on the talent in this country. We need to look at what happened when access to education was freed up in Northern Ireland, for example. I read the other day about the extraordinary roll call of former pupils of St. Columb's College in Derry, including John Hume, the musician, Phil Coulter, Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane. It is possible that none of them would have completed their careers as successfully as they did without the improvements in educational access.

I would like to mention some indicators. Earlier this year, Catherine Dooley and Paul Downes of St. Patrick's College published a useful and easily accessible document, Lifelong learning opportunities in the workplace for traditionally disadvantaged groups in Ireland. They pointed out that the National Economic and Social Council estimates that 60% of those who will be in the labour force in 2020 are already in employment. In other words, the same people will continue to comprise the majority of the workforce in ten years' time. They also argued that skills levels need immediate attention. Under the international standard classification of education, 30% of the workforce has level 2 qualifications or less, with 10% of the workforce having level 1 qualifications or no qualifications at all. That is the situation we are at. There is a serious need for the upskilling of low-skilled workers. The document also reported that more than 100,000 people under the age of 30 in the Irish workforce left the education system without the leaving certificate. It found that 18% of young people in the Irish education system leave second level before reaching the leaving certificate. Many of those who leave school early move into low-skilled jobs with very little opportunity for upskilling. If the economic downturn persists, these people will be more exposed because they entered the job market at a low skill level.

We must acknowledge that there is a serious funding problem in the current difficult economic situation. According to an impartial view - I am not quoting partisan groups like Fine Gael, the Labour Party or Fianna Fáil - €4 billion is required to upgrade building space and to provide facilities for an additional 55,000 students over the next decade. We have a reasonably good education system but it is under-resourced. How will it cope with the vast increase in student numbers? In January of this year, 12,000 mature students applied to the CAO. That is more than twice the number of mature students who applied in 2003, which was a mere seven years ago. In the old days, just 60% of such people pursued their initial applications, but that figure has increased to 85%. The stress is getting greater.

I would like to speak about the payment of grants, which is the real nub of the issue. Various allowances are available to mature students, the main ones being the higher education grant and the back to education allowance. Prior to the latest budget, anyone who was in receipt of the back to education allowance could also apply for and receive the higher education grant. This is no longer the case, however, as a result of a budget decision. I want to address that directly. I have been contacted by some mature students who do not have any partisan bias. They would like me to put their experiences on the record. They made the point I have just made, which is that both the back to education allowance and the student maintenance grant were available to all mature students before the last budget. The back to education allowance is the equivalent of a person's social welfare payment, such as the jobseeker's benefit of €196 a week. As a result of the budget, mature students starting college in September of this year will no longer be entitled to receive both payments.

In April 2010, the Department of Education and Skills confirmed that people on disability or lone parent payments will be eligible to claim both payments. I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, will accept that despite that welcome blip, what I have outlined represents a narrowing of educational accessibility. The total amount of money available to all third level institutions for these grants is quite small. If a student wishes to apply for a payment under the student assistance fund, for example, he or she must submit a receipt and fill in an application form. He or she may then have to wait for up to three months to get some money. That causes difficulties for people on tight budgets. As the fund itself is limited, students are not guaranteed this assistance. The total amount available is €5 million. That fund can be accessed by all students, not just mature students. Mature students are now expected to attend third level education while living on their social welfare entitlements alone.

I would like to mention a couple of cases. The first case is that of a woman with five children who lives in rural County Galway and has to travel 80 km a day. She should not be prevented from returning to university simply because she has children. It would be impossible for her to attend university without financial assistance. The second case is that of a young man with three children who has to make a round trip of 20 km. The cost of travel is a factor for both people. It is difficult for them to access university without financial assistance. They have to pay for child care. The woman has to pay someone to mind her five children while she travels 80 km each day. It is impossible for her to do so within the existing grant structure. If one gets just €196 a week, how on earth can one feed and clothe one's children, get an education and make a long round trip?

These issues do not just apply to Galway. A mature student living in Dublin made a request for their statement to be read to the Joint Committee on Education and Science. I will put it on the record:

I need to explain the magnitude of the decision that people like me have made in undertaking the Access course last September, and what the change in the budget has done. We are mentally, emotionally and financially committed to staying through years of unlimited income in order to achieve a greater goal, in many cases accepting that a place in the workforce is to be suspended until the education is completed. However, we are motivated by success. It is [I think I can safely say this is true of all Access students] our commitment and resourcefulness that have got us this far in our lives, operating often on minimal qualifications, but for which this recession proved to be the final wound. This educational opportunity would position us to excel and shine without the threat of not having a qualification held over us to finally bring to fruition those skills we had developed outside of formal education but which often went unrecognised and unrewarded. For many of us, it is not feasible to continue without experiencing severe hardship and ultimately, I think, many will fail.

That is the dispassionate view of a consumer. The last piece of evidence I would like to give is a letter I discovered in The Irish Times printed on 12 February:

Madam

I am a mature student in an Access course in NUI Galway. This course is designed to get people from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background into third-level education.

When I started this part-time course in September last year, it was on the premise that both the back-to-education allowance and the maintenance grant would be available to me once I started the degree course next September. Indeed it was the availability of these moneys that made going back to college financially possible.

Halfway through my Access course, last month, it emerged that the Government had made cuts in education which means that when I go on to do my arts degree on 10 September, I will not now receive the maintenance grant.

If this continues to be the case, I will no longer be able to pursue my goal of returning to full-time education.

For the Government to expect us mature students, already paying the weekly bills of an independent life, now to incur the added expense of full-time education on top of this, and survive on €196 a week is ludicrous and out of touch with reality.

I am hugely disappointed and feel let down by a Government, which claimed to be committed to education. I could never again give my vote to any of the current Government involved in these unjustified cuts.

I started on an optimistic note, demonstrating from personal experience the talent that lies latent which could be activated in young and mature people. It is fanciful, however, for us to talk about this wonderfully well educated group when, in fact, we do not support it.

Trinity College, Dublin, now ranks in the top 50 world universities, even though it operates on a fraction of the funding Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale universities receive, a remarkable achievement. We cannot blind ourselves to the difficulties encountered in education, yet we engage in this sentimental waffle about having a wonderfully educated workforce when, in fact, we are falling back. We need to make the investment in education which will relieve the real people whose stories I have related in Seanad Éireann tonight.