Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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311. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the cost of abolishing all third level education fees including both registration and tuition. [27487/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Based on the number of students that qualified for free fees funding in the academic year 2014/15 (and were therefore liable to pay the Student Contribution), and taking into account overall expected increases in student numbers, it is estimated that the net cost to my Department of abolishing the Student Contribution for the 2017/18 academic year would be €206.56m. This includes the resulting saving to my Department's Student Grant Scheme budget.

It should be noted that under my Department's free fees schemes, funding of some €260m is provided annually in relation to tuition fee funding for over 130,000 students who qualify for funding.