Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

When I read the subject of this debate, I wondered whether it was statements on third level funding and the costs of going to college for Ukrainian students. I wondered where the commas were. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to discuss this wide range of topics, each of which could have taken up an entire debate on its own.

The situation around Ukraine is complex and ever-evolving. No one knows how or when it will end or what it will look like. I commend the Department on all the work that is being done on that in trying to support and facilitate Ukrainian students coming here. The helpline is incredibly useful and very worthwhile. Are there projections available on how many Ukrainian students will join Irish universities? What are the plans for Ukrainian academic staff and how will they be facilitated?

Under the European Higher Education Area, EHEA, statement which the Minister signed on behalf of Ireland, we will be bound to make provision to allow Ukrainian students complete studies here once they have commenced. It is really welcome and I commend the Department on signing that. Has the Department done work with the Department of Finance on the cost of this and how that will be provided for? We talk a lot about the cost of living and of going to third level. There are additional costs around travel, accommodation, laptops, books and materials. Are there plans for a separate funding stream or something through SUSI, for example, that would help Ukrainian students with those additional costs? I have no doubt that the community will step in to support those students, as we have seen throughout the country, but will there be a specific funding stream apart from the waiving of fees and so on?

There may also be Russian students coming here to look for education, fleeing to Ireland as the conflict continues. Has there been any conversation around support for Russian students who might come here? On third level funding, I note the Minister's recent contribution at the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, conference covered the issue of funding for the technological university sector. Does the Minister of State have more information on how that funding model will be structured and maintained? There are a lot of plans afoot for funding models and what it will all look like. That was the first time I heard the Minister talk about it so I wonder if the Minister of State has any further details.

I will move on to the costs of going to college. In the first two years of the lifetime of this Government the mood music was that fees were too high - post Brexit, we have the highest fees in Europe - and that that was going to change. That was the impression many people in the sector were under and it was certainly the impression the Minister gave. Over the past few weeks that has become a lot more restricted. There has been less talk of it and we seem to be dancing around whether fees will be reduced in any way, manner or form. I have said this many times and I will say it here: either you believe further and higher education is a public good benefitting all of society or you do not. There are no ifs, buts or education cuts about it. It is a basic principle. We cannot on the one hand talk about skills shortages and the fact we do not have enough doctors or people in the pipeline for various things while also having the highest fees in Europe, which are a barrier to people studying. I was in the Chamber earlier when Deputy Rabbitte took a question on the Minister of State's behalf about funding and costs for graduate entry medicine. That sum of €16,000 a year is a colossal amount of money. It is €64,000 overall for doctors, which we do not have enough of. That is crazy.

Reference was made to income-contingent loans. When I was in the student movement, we did lots of reports on this based on international evidence. I am sure the Minister of State's own reports will reflect this as well. These loans result in crippling debt. Young people are already faced with not being able to reach many of the milestones we would have previously considered perfectly normal, things like being able to buy a home, to start a family at a certain age and so on. An enormous amount of evidence, from New Zealand all the way over to America, shows that crippling student debt hinders that even further. We already have a cost-of-living crisis. It would be unconscionable and incomprehensible for this Government to even contemplate income-contingent loans and burdening students further with that debt.

The Minister of State says there is a very clear way forward but it has been six years since we got the Cassells report. I suppose we can all wait another couple of weeks but it has been six years now. This report has gone around Europe and has been sitting there for quite some time. I know we are talking about a huge amount of money but what is the way forward? We keep coming in here and discussing this, saying we have to go forward and there has to be a funding solution and so on. The whole thing is creaking at the seams. We keep being told something is going to be done but what is it? When are we going to find out? When is the sector going to know what the funding model is and how it will be sustainably managed? Without a further and higher education sector, this country will not be able to function. I hope the Minister of State can take that back to Cabinet. We could really do with an answer at some point as to what the actual funding solution is going to be.