Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. While my question is simple there is a certain complexity behind it. The first indication that the student charge was going to be increased came prior to Christmas when, ironically, a question was tabled by the now Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn. It was followed up by his party colleague the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Róisín Shortall, who asked the then Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan, on Tuesday, 25 January, the precise student contribution charge that would apply in the case of siblings in 2011. The question asked on 25 January is now being asked of the new Administration.

In her reply the then Minister said,

The Finance Bill 2011 provided for certain changes in regard to tax relief arrangements for student fees and charges which would give an effective cost reduction in respect of second and subsequent siblings from a single family who are liable for the new student contribution charge. The existing tax relief for third level fees and charges will now be amended to provide that the first €2,000 in fees charged per claim will be ineligible for tax relief for students in full-time education and families with two or more children liable for the new student contribution will therefore now qualify for tax relief in respect of payments arising from second and subsequent sibling liability.

The matter then rested and the new Government took over. Despite repeated attempts to establish with the Department of Education and Skills what exactly the position is regarding the second and subsequent siblings of a student who is in third level education in terms of what the charge will be, there has been a failure to establish it, hence the question I am asking today.

I should put on the record that according to the Irish Independent, the Minister, Deputy Quinn, has commissioned a report on funding for the education sector and has not ruled out the introduction of fees and new student charges claiming it is hard to see how higher education can meet Government targets without more money. However, before the election the Labour Party promised that it would not increase fees or charges and would also reverse the €500 increase in student registration charges due to be introduced in September as per the proposals of the previous Government.

In an editorial in The Sunday Times on 5 June reference was again made to the Minister, Deputy Quinn, as follows:

[The Minister has] upset his backbenchers by executing a U-turn on the funding of third level education and his admission that his pre-election vow to oppose the €500 increase in the student registration fee no longer applies and is in line with last year's Hunt report which found the existing funding model for third level education unsustainable.

In a further comment on 31 May the Irish Independent again referred to the Labour Party Minister admitting that the student registration charge would rise to €2,000 per student in September, despite promising the opposite before the election.

The newspaper also referred to the fact that, during the election campaign, the Minister signed a Union of Students in Ireland pledge that the Labour Party would not reintroduce third-level fees in government, or support an increase in the student service charge.

On 15 December 2010, the Irish Independent referred to Fine Gael's policy to charge college graduates fees. Their policy on third-level funding, entitled "The Third Way", proposed deferred contribution payments by students of up to €4,300 for each year of study. The total of deferred fees mentioned in the report ranged from €11,400 for a three-year arts degree, to €17,096 for engineering. As an alternative to having income deducted, graduates could pay off their fees immediately after graduation. However, the Fine Gael policy document did not mention how students in expensive courses, such as veterinary science and medicine, would pay.

The former president of Dublin City University, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, said that while Labour has a strong emotional attachment to free fees:

It was a massive gift to the middle classes. It paid for many well-to-do people to go to university from areas such as Foxrock and Stillorgan, but did nothing to increase numbers going from areas such as Ballymun.

I have tabled this Adjournment matter because it is obvious from all the statements by representatives both of Fine Gael and the Labour Party that there is some confusion over what the position will be when the academic year commences in September 2011. Will there be a continuation of the previous Fianna Fáil Minister's proposals to increase fees to €2,000 for the first student and to introduce a tax relief for second or subsequent siblings, or will there be some other form of increased registration charge? One way or the other, I do not anticipate that the status quo will remain, given what the Minister of State had to say in answering the previous Adjournment motion. I hope he will not start with the pejorative statement he made in the last reply, that Fianna Fáil mismanaged the economy. There were many other factors apart from political activity, as he and everybody else now knows and readily acknowledges. I would be grateful for some clarification, however, in the interests of parents, like myself, who want to know how much it will cost for our children to enter third-level education in September.