Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 98: To ask the Minister for Education and Science her views on whether the cost of child care represents a considerable barrier to lower income students in participating in third level education; and if she will ensure that the maintenance grant system, through reform, will recognise same. [5048/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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There are a number of initiatives funded by my Department, as well as by other government departments and agencies, which acknowledge the additional costs encountered by lower income students, including those with children, and support their participation in higher education.

Major improvements have been made by this Government in both the income limits for eligibility and the actual grant levels for third level student support. This includes the introduction of the special rate of maintenance grant. The higher rate of this grant is now at a record level of nearly €6,000 for the 2006/07 academic year — compared with just over €2,000 in 1996/97.

The childcare costs of a number of students are also supported under the ESF-aided Student Assistance Fund, which is resourced by my Department and allocated directly to students by their higher education institutions. In a 2005 review of access funding by the National Office for Equity of Access to Higher Education, some institutions reported that up to 60% of their students drawing on the Student Assistance Fund, did so to support childcare costs incurred while they were in higher education. Additional support to meet the needs of lower income students, including those with children, is made available by my Department under the Millennium Partnership Fund, an access measure provided through the community structures supported by Pobal.

Greater affordability of childcare, linked to the creation of additional childcare places, has been a key principle in both the previous and current National Development Plans. This Government has provided unprecedented levels of funding for childcare in recent years. €499.3 million was allocated to the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP) 2000-2006 and some 41,000 places will have been created by the time the programme finishes.

Going forward, childcare provision will continue to attract substantial investment under the new National Childcare Investment Programme 2006-2010. €575m has been allocated to the new programme, which will be administered by the Office of the Minister for Children and aims to provide a proactive response to the development of quality childcare services by supporting the creation of an additional 50,000 places. This Government also introduced the Early Childhood Supplement of €1000 per child under six to help parents with childcare costs.

The National Childcare Investment Sub-Programme of the NDP will be an important element in the Government's efforts to remove barriers to employment, education or training and to tackle educational disadvantage. This sub-programme will see €1.3 billion invested over the period of the current NDP.

As the Deputy may already be aware, I will shortly be introducing a single unified scheme of maintenance grants for students in higher education which will, I believe, provide for a more coherent administrative system. The new scheme will facilitate consistency of application, improved client accessibility and ensure the timely delivery of grants to those who need them most. This, together with my commitment to ongoing improvements in the student support schemes including increasing the rates of grant and the income limits for eligibility as resources permit, will continue to build on our success in this area.

There are clear indications that the increased investment of resources in this area over the last decade and more is now paying dividends and that targets for participation in higher education that were set in the 2001 Report of the Action Group on Access to Higher Education and the last National Development Plan 2000-2006 have been reached. For example, participation by mature entrants to full-time higher education has grown from 4.5% in 1998 to almost 10% in 2006.

Surveys conducted by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) also indicate that access to higher education by young people from under-represented socioeconomic groups continues to improve. For example, in 2004, between 33% and 40% of young people nationally from the semi-skilled and unskilled socioeconomic groups went on to study in higher education compared to only 23% in 1998. New targets for participation will be developed in 2007, particularly as linked to the implementation of the new National Development Plan 2007-2013.