Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. While it is a worthwhile report, I feel the issues in it tinker around the edges. The last time the Minister of State was in this Chamber, we had a long discussion about third level funding and about income-contingent loan schemes or the potential for their introduction. She made the point that she was waiting for the Joint Committee on Education and Skills to come up with proposals to react to the Cassells report. Once the committee did its work the Minister of State said she would react to it. I do not think that washes anymore as a political answer. It is time for the Minister of State and her Department to take leadership in this area. I am still exasperated at the her ministerial colleague in the same Department, the Minister, Deputy Bruton, who still will not state he believes in equality in education in terms of pay and will not commit to the vision of free education. The Union of Students in Ireland, USI, have launched a campaign and the Labour Party has launched a campaign to have a vision for free education at all levels, namely, primary, secondary and third level. The Minister of State's response to our debate was that the Joint Committee on Education and Skills should be allowed to do its work and then to come back to her. That is not good enough. The Joint Committee on Education and Skills is not in charge of education policy in the country. The Minister of State and her Department are. She should be driving the agenda; not the Joint Committee on Education and Skills. If the committee has not got down to doing the work, is not conducting hearings and is nowhere near producing a report on it, the Minister of State then must step in as the visionary for higher level education in this country. Hiding behind the Joint Committee on Education and Skills, regardless of the standard of contributor to that committee, is just not good enough. We need from the Minister of State a strong commitment to a vision for free education. No one suggests this can happen overnight, in one budget or even in a number of budgets. It might be possible over five years or perhaps over ten years. However, were that vision to be announced by the Minister of State and her ministerial colleague in the same Department, we might be able to work together to achieve it. Until this point, however, the Minister of State has been hiding behind the Joint Committee on Education and Skills and saying it is up to it to come up with proposals. It is not; it is actually up to the Minister, her ministerial colleague and their Department to set out that vision as to how third level education should be funded and to set out the vision for free education. That is something I believe we should all be able to share and work towards with the Minister.

My final point is when we were in government with Fine Gael, one of the biggest rows we had was over the issue of grants for third level. The contention of the Labour Party is that PAYE workers are constantly taking up the tab for others who find access to third level grants, be they maintenance grants or other grants, because of the magic wand of accountants that certain self-employed professions are able to employ. I recall an example of one individual who had €250,000 in a savings account but was still eligible for a full suite of grants for his children to attend third level education. A PAYE worker would not be able to do that. These matters are assessed on need but the suggestion that we would have any kind of a capital assets test, in whatever way, was hugely resisted by the Minister's own party in government and we did not get very far on introducing that. In a system where approximately 45% to 50% of students are availing of some level of grants and it costs approximately €300 million a year to administer these grants, I would have assumed that the most vulnerable of students would be the ones who would avail of these grants and not those who have accountants who can move the money around. Unfortunately, that remains the case. I have two questions for the Minister of State. Does she believe in free education and will she stop hiding behind the Joint Committee on Education and Skills in order that she can verbalise that vision and work towards it? What is the position in respect of the capital asset test and can we look forward to a day when PAYE workers will not always be asked to pick up the tab for those who can avail of accountants who can hide assets and therefore get the grants they do not deserve?