Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

Our young people are among the most highly qualified in all of the EU. We have the highest number when it comes to young people between the ages of 25 and 34. That is something to be commended. Unfortunately, our system is not without its challenges. I will address a number of the issues. First, with regard to fees, we have free fees in name only. It is a student contribution charge. It was introduced a number of years ago at €3,000. While it is being permanently reduced to €2,500, for parents who had children in third level last year and the year before, they only had to pay €2,000. For them, it is an increase of €500. It is unfortunate that it could not have been left at €2,000 for another year. Is it the intention going forward to continue to reduce that charge until it is fully abolished? That is something we need to plan for.

As has already been identified, student accommodation is one of the biggest issues facing students at present. We hear all of the stories of the long commutes that students have to make because they cannot get accommodation at an affordable rate close to their colleges. Many of them rely on public transport, which is often not very reliable. Others are paying quite high costs for rent, which results in them having to work part time along with studying. In fact, although working part time, they often work quite long hours which means that their studies suffer. They may end up failing exams or even dropping out because of burnout. We hear of other students sleeping in their cars or sofa surfing in their friends’ apartments. It is just not good enough. It is not enhancing the experience of third level students.

Even with purpose-built student accommodation, the rates students pay can be up to €1,000 per month. Those rates are often charged for 12 months, even though they do not need the accommodation for 12 months. They may only need it for eight or nine months, but they have to pay it because of the shortage of availability of accommodation. The current shortfall is identified as being between 25,000 and 30,000 places. It is predicted that figure could rise to 68,000 by 2035. That is substantial and needs to be addressed.

UCD is probably the college with the greatest amount of accommodation, but it is also probably the most expensive. The UCD village, which was completed in 2021, has three tiers, which were initially called the silver, gold and platinum tiers. The rates charged for each tier increased to a spec that they did not need to be. The tiers have since been renamed to tiers 1, 2 and 3, but the costs attached are still quite substantial. The Minister referenced the investment of €67 million in phase 2 of the village, which is obviously welcome. A concern was raised with me that the cost seems to be substantial, however. It is approaching €250,000 per bedroom on university-owned land. To me, that is extortionate. Charges will end up being high again to try to make up for that cost. I am not sure why the cost is so high.With the tendering process, the contractors are coming in but I think we need to standardise the accommodation. It does not need to be a high spec. We should just make it substantial and appropriate, but something that is suitable for students and good quality without being too expensive. A lot of the student-specific accommodation is provided by private investors. A lot of them are investment funds. They are getting generous tax breaks. They are building to quite an unnecessarily high spec and, therefore, it costs a lot to the end user.

The other issue is the disparity in the borrowing framework for technological universities. Traditional universities can borrow money, often through the European Investment Bank, to build on-campus residences but technological universities cannot. This has been acknowledged for years. The 2018 Technological Universities Act foresaw a borrowing mechanism. In 2021, the Government announced a clear decision to allow it but there is no mechanism in place as yet. The Minister is aware of this. He has been working with the TUs so perhaps he could give us an update on where that is at. Some of the TUs are ready to go if this was put in place. They have their plans in place. They are ready to go to planning, practically. Now, it would still take a couple of years for the construction to be completed but at least there would be an end in sight and they would be able to provide accommodation. Only one technological university has some accommodation at present. The rest of them do not.

In relation to North-South mobility and co-operation, it is good to see that there has been an increase but it is something that we need to look at and increase further. Within the shared island unit, there is the North-South research programme. I would like to see that enhanced and its remit widened to maybe look at education at third level on an all-island basis. There is a disparity between the different assessment structures, such as the A-levels as compared with the leaving certificate. They are quite different. The entry levels for university for people from the South going North and vice versaneed to be worked out in order that it is fair to all of the students. I definitely would like to see more North-South co-operation between our universities and colleges.

On the Irish language, the Minister mentioned, as outlined in the 20-year strategy for the Irish language, that 20% of recruits to the public sector must be competent in the Irish language by 2030. That is only around the corner and we are not near it at present. Only 1% of our third level students receive education through the medium of Irish. Many of our students have had their education to date through Irish, in primary school and post-primary school, and it is extremely difficult for them to then have to try and start learning through English. We need to increase the range and uptake of Irish-medium courses at third level. We need to train students across academic disciplines and third level institutions to be competent to work in Irish, both to meet the educational skill needs of our Gaeltacht communities and our Irish speakers everywhere but also because within the EU our language is a recognised language and because of the 20% public service recruitment target, which is only around the corner. We could learn a lot from the Welsh model because 20 years ago, only 3% of their students were learning through Welsh - my figures could be slightly wrong but they are around that - but now it is 20%. They have done that in the space of 20 years or maybe less. We need to look at something on the same level. Also, third level students have indicated that they would like to see something done in Ireland similar to what was done in Wales, namely, is free language courses within the college, not necessarily to do their course through learn Irish but to learn to speak Irish because there is an uptick in interest in the language at present and we should capitalise on that.

On apprenticeships, I note the Minister stated there is a reduction in the fee. I would like to see that fee reduced until it is finally abolished. Many of our apprentices are working for very small money. They are getting way less than the minimum wage. I heard about a case recently where a young lad - he was in his early 20s because he had done something else after he left school and then went into an electrical apprenticeship - was getting €7 an hour when he started. It might have increased in his second year to €8. I know that when he is qualified, he probably can charge what he likes because there is such a shortage but it is difficult to attract people, especially older people who might have a family or other commitments, into doing apprenticeships if the wages are so low.

On the further and higher education committee, we are looking in depth at apprenticeships. We are all pretty familiar with traditional craft apprenticeships but there is then an uptick in the number of business-led consortia apprenticeships. I welcome the fact the national apprenticeship office is looking at an integrated model for the two but concerns have been expressed that it looks like it is going down the road of the consortium model rather than the traditional craft model. In Britain, they went down that road and ended up having to abandon it. They are going back to the craft model because a lot of students pulled out of that given that they ended up being used as cheap labour and students were not getting the appropriate training that they needed.