Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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214. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a person (details supplied) in County Mayo will be liable for full international fees for each of their years in third level education; her views that this anomaly should be amended; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42659/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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As the Deputy is aware the Exchequer funds tuition fees costs in respect of eligible students who are pursuing full-time undergraduate courses of study under my Department's Free Fees Initiative. The main conditions of the scheme are that students must be first-time undergraduates, hold inter alia EU/EEA/Swiss nationality in their own right, and have been ordinarily resident in an EU/EEA/Swiss state for at least three of the five years preceding their entry to an approved third level course.

Where students do not qualify for free fees they must pay the appropriate fee as determined by their third level institution. The institutions are autonomous and the level of fee payable by students who do not meet the requirements of the Free Fees Initiative is entirely a matter for the relevant institution.