Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 473: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the estimated annual cost of extending the free fees scheme to part-time courses in third level institutions. [45988/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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There are currently some 21,000 part-time undergraduate students enrolled in the university and institute of technology sectors. It is not known how many of these students would qualify under any extension of the Free Fees Initiative as this would be determined by the eligibility criteria that would apply to such a scheme, including for example, residency, nationality, previous higher education attainment etc.

The availability of free fees would also be likely to impact on future demand for access to higher education on a part-time basis. Accordingly, the Deputy will appreciate that any estimate of costs is very tentative depending on the range of variables referred to. Taking account of these, and factoring in likely growth in numbers and unit cost funding implications for colleges, it is estimated that the costs of a scheme could be in the range of €40m to €100m per annum.