Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)

I have been following and engaging in this debate for the last number of weeks, I think it is fair to say that this is just pure populism politics being playing by a lot of people in government and across the Opposition and I have no hesitation in saying that. When was there ever a budget announcement in July? The budget will be at the end of September or in October, the same as it has been for as long as I can remember, and I have been around politics a while. The Senator is standing up here saying she wants the Government to make an announcement now regarding the budget. She knows that cannot happen. She talks about wanting to have certainty and clarity. The Senator and I debated this on a radio programme about two weeks ago and I pointed out to her that with previous cost-of-living measures such as the energy payments, the fuel allowance, child benefit, the living alone allowance and a whole suite of other payments that were part of the cost-of-living package, she did not advocate for any of them. They were all part of the same package as that relating to student fees.

Why do Senator Harmon, the Fine Gael Senators and the Fine Gael TD who rang into the Joe Duffy radio show, or whatever talk show it was, not ask their party leader, who was Minister for further and higher education at the time? They should phone him and ask him. They should phone the subsequent Minister, Deputy O'Donovan. They brought it in as a cost-of-living measure. It was a Government decision, and the Government has decided there will not be a cost-of-living package on this occasion. The Senator will not get an announcement. What the Minister, Deputy Lawless, did when he went on radio and was trying to present it as being a big reveal was set it out factually as it is. The €1,000 reduction, and the Senator knows this well, was a one-off over a number of years. It was never baked into the base as a permanent measure. The Senator knows all this.

As regards the budget this year, let us see what happens. I imagine there will be a reduction. I would like to see a reduction and I will be calling for one. If people want to play politics with it and try to march the student body up and down to the top of the hill and make political capital out of it, they can be my guest. They can knock themselves out in doing so. However, the Senator knows, as do students, that it was a one-off. This time last year or the previous year, students were not asking for clarity, but this year everybody is looking for clarity. They will get it when the budget comes out.