Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The higher education access route, HEAR, is a fund that has been put in place by the Government to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Six criteria are applied that relate to income, in addition to family size and where people come from etc. It is a very important resource that allows people from certain backgrounds to get into college. Each of the third-level institutions throughout the country reserves places for people from the HEAR programme to make sure we have equality of access to third-level education. It is not perfect and does not do everything it needs to do, but it is an important step.

Can we bring the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to the House to have a debate on what the criteria are for inclusion in the HEAR programme? What are the things we could include in order to expand it? One matter that has been brought to my attention is that when a student doing the leaving certificate suffers a close family bereavement, for example, a parent, that obviously has a very significant impact on that person's ability to prepare for examinations. If that parent has been sick for a long time, it could massively impact on the person's study, focus, mental health etc. That is something that impacts a student and inhibits his or her ability to get into college. There may be other factors. I ask that the Minister comes to the House to have a debate on whether we should expand the criteria for HEAR to include those people who suffer disadvantage of one sort or another in their leaving certificate year or close to their exams.