Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to be invited to Seanad Éireann today to speak on the report on the eligibility of maintenance grants to students - Wake-up SUSI. I welcome the report from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills, which adds to the debate on the future funding of the higher education sector. The report makes five recommendations and I will deal with each of these in turn before discussing the statutory provisions regarding approved institutions, future funding options for the higher sector and the Government’s response to these funding challenges.

The first recommendation is that the eligibility reckoner on the SUSI website should clearly indicate to applicants if their preferred college is eligible for grant support. The eligibility reckoner on the SUSI website is a tool designed to give students an indication of their likely eligibility for a grant. It is not a definitive determination of an applicant’s eligibility for grant support. This determination can only be made by SUSI upon receipt of all relevant documents that form part of a grant application. The recommendation regarding the eligibility reckoner on the SUSI website has been brought to the attention of SUSI and will be considered in the context of the annual review of the scheme for 2018.

The second recommendation is for the Department to undertake a review of the CAO application process to clearly identify the college courses and colleges that qualify for a SUSI grant. Higher education institutions are autonomous and academically independent and they set the entry criteria for admissions to their courses. While higher education institutions have delegated the task of processing course applications to the Central Applications Office, they retain the function of making decisions on their entry requirements. The Department does not have a role in relation to the operation of the CAO or the admission of students to third level institutions. I understand that it would be technically possible for the CAO to identify colleges which are not eligible for SUSI grants but any decision to identify colleges in this way is likely to meet with resistance from the private colleges.

The third recommendation proposes that, subject to a course and college being Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, approved, eligibility for a maintenance grant should be based on the means of the student rather than on the choice of college. QQI validation is valued by higher education institutions, as it indicates to potential students that the validated programmes have met the quality assurance requirements of the State regulator. The fact that a programme has been validated by QQI does not confer any status on the provider or programme with regard to eligibility for public funding.

The fourth recommendation suggests that students enrolled at private colleges should, if eligible under the relevant SUSI criteria, be entitled to the same value of SUSI funding for payment of annual degree course fees that they would receive at an equivalent course in a State-funded higher education institution. The criteria that a higher education institution has to meet in order to be considered an approved institution for student grant funding purposes are outlined in section 7 of the Student Support Act of 2011. No additional institutions have been added to the scheme since the passing of the 2011 Act. Any consideration to extend the list of approved institutions would not only have to consider the potential impact on existing approved institutions but also other institutions both in Ireland and across the EU. To extend the student grant scheme to all Higher Education Colleges Association, HECA, colleges is estimated to cost approximately €17 million per annum. This is a rolling figure which is likely to rise to €34 million in year 2 and so on.

Can I ask the Acting Chairman if I will be told if there is a vote in Dáil Éireann?