Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

They did so without any sense of irony or appreciation of the circumstances in which they left the country in 2010 and 2011.

Like the Minister of State, I am extremely passionate about education and convinced that the third level sector needs more State aid, not less. I was the first member of my immediate and wider family to have the privilege to attend university. My father was a factory worker who did not have that opportunity. My mother was a stay-at-home mam. She, too, did not have the opportunity and neither did my grandparents or anybody else in my family. The State educated me from primary to third level, a fact of which I am proud. I am proud because that is what this republic does. I am proud that these Houses have decided continuously to do it for many generations. I am also proud of the Labour Party's historic decision in the mid-1990s to open up access to third level for everybody, regardless of from where one came from or one's income. It is arguable if I would be standing here were it not for the fact that I accessed free third level education. I do not know where I would be, but I am convinced that I would not be here. The opportunities I enjoyed with others broadened my horizons and those of my peer group in my community. Access to free third level education had opened up a host of opportunities that had been denied to my father and my mother, not because of a lack of ability but because of where they came from and their lack of income.

As my colleague, Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, said, education is the great liberator and a great leveller. For that reason, I do not want any income contingent loan scheme to be introduced. As my colleague, Senator Frances Bacik, said in reference to Andrew Adonis who made interesting remarks last week, he was the architect of the UK system introduced a number of years ago. I agree with him that, to use his quote, it is a "Frankenstein's monster," and that university tuition fees have spun out of control in the United Kingdom. Nobody is clear on the direction they are takeing, other than it is upwards. The fear of accruing debts of between £50,000 and £60,000 in pursuing a three or four-year college degree in the United Kingdom is already having an impact on the number of undergraduates from lower socioeconomic groups choosing to participate in third level education. Anything that would narrow access to third level education for working class people and ensure that it would be the preserve of young people whose families are professionals or who come from the farming and business communities, frankly, should be taken off the table.

Even if one is ideologically predisposed towards introducing an income contingent loan scheme, it would be economically illiterate and there is evidence to prove my claim. The Institute of Fiscal Studies in the United Kingdom has estimated that about 77% of graduates will not pay back their loans in full. Earlier my colleague, Senator Paul Gavan, referred to an analysis which had been carried out by Corbet and Larkin. They believe the risk of default, should a similar system be applied here, would be so enormous as to make an income contingent loan scheme inoperable.From an economic point of view, the scheme would not even wash its own face. Apart entirely from concerns about loading young people with enormous levels of debt that they would have to carry throughout their working lives, the initiative simply does not work from an economic perspective.

I am surprised the Labour Party has been accused of adopting a populist position on this matter. God knows our history shows that is not the position the Labour Party, my party and a party I am proud to be a member of, has ever taken. We know the value of things but we also know the cost. I think nothing more populist has been done in these Houses in recent times than the abolition of water charges. It was done to allow the Government to continue in office - not in power, but in office. It is worth noting an article on the front page of today's Irish Examinerwhere it has been claimed that a massive budgetary hole has been left in the Estimates this year and that the State needs to spend €200 million on its water service. Interestingly, with the stroke of a pen, that €200 million could abolish the student contribution charge for this year.