Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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193. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the guidelines in place in third level institutions for children of returning emigrants; if they are required to pay international fees; if so, his plans to reduce this burden on students and their families; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5586/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Where undergraduate students do not qualify for free fees they are required to pay fees to their higher education institution at either an ‘EU rate’ or a higher ‘Non-EU rate’.

As autonomous institutions, the determination of the fee rate applicable for individual students is a matter for the higher education institutions.

Due to a particular concern regarding people who have had, for occupational or economic reasons, to move abroad, requiring them to take their children out of the Irish education system in the process, in March 2014 the Department requested that the Higher Education Authority (HEA) advise the higher education sector that full-time undergraduate students who:

- hold EU/EEA/Swiss nationality but do not meet the residency clause of the Free Fees Initiative;

- and have completed five academic years of study (at either primary or post-primary level) in an EU/EEA/Swiss State; and

- commence their first undergraduate course of study in an approved institution here from the following academic year onwards,

should be charged the EU rate of fee rather than the higher non-EU rate by their higher education institution.  

This approach was implemented for new students from the commencement of the 2014/15 academic year and it is a matter for the institutions to apply this policy to such students.