Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Labour Party motion. I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate her on her appointment and I welcome the citizens in the Public Gallery.

I regret that Senator Mullen feels that a to and fro has developed between Sinn Féin and the Labour Party. I think what Senator Gavan has set out and what I will set out is a vision for a political system that does not make promises it cannot keep but rather keeps every commitment it makes. Sinn Féin and I have worked well with the Labour Party. That has certainly been the case on every occasion I have brought forward legislation in the past year.

This motion strikes to the heart of social inequality in the State. Sinn Féin and I believe that equality of opportunity is key to combatting classism and that education is the means to achieve that. Article 42 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, published in 1937, instills the right of every child in the State to a primary education. In 1966 the then Minister for Education, Donogh O'Malley, introduced free secondary education for all children. In 1995 the then Minister for Education, Niamh Bhreathnach, abolished third level fees. Throughout the history of the State, governments have realised the social deprivation caused by a limited access model and taken significant steps to address issues of access to education in order to break down the socio-economic barriers that exist.

It has been said in the House and at the Joint Committee on Education and Skills that the free fees model is no longer free and that the current model is unfair and undue fee rises are unsustainable. I listened to the presentations on this issue to the Joint Committee on Education and Skills and noted that no advocate for a deferred payment model made reference to a working international model, the fiscal flexibility of the State to incur such debt or the horrific and inequitable burdening debt that has been incurred by students in Australia, the United States and Britain. We currently have an access crisis with fees being among the highest in Europe, maintenance grants having been slashed and student assistance fund applications having surged as students and their families struggle to bear the rising costs of living. The arguments for a deferred payment model heard by the committee do not hold true and have been completely dispelled by Professor Kathleen Lynch of UCD and Dr. Charles Larkin of Trinity College Dublin.

I commend Senators Bacik and Ó Ríordáin for bringing this motion to the House alongside the significant work done on the issue by representatives from various organisations such as the Union of Students of Ireland, USI, the Coalition for Publicly Funded Higher Education and the Irish Secondary Level Students Union. Progressive forces in this House commend their activism. The Oireachtas is nothing without the people and I thank those organisations for the arguments they have presented for a publicly-funded education system which I and progressive forces in the House believe have won. It will take political will and bravery for the Government to meet the aspirations of previous visionary Ministers for Education.