asked the Minister for Education if he will clarify his Dáil statement by specifying the university facilities for which students will only have to pay a £10 increase in fees.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - University Fees.
19.
It will be a matter for the university college authorities to take my statement into account in connection with their decisions on the revised rates of fees to apply in the various faculties. I may state, however, that the faculties in which the restriction of the increase in the fee to £10 might apply would be other than arts, commerce, social science, law and music.
May I ask why this peculiar decision was given by the Department?
I have already explained this in detail in my reply on the Estimate. I pointed out that representations were made to me by the Union of Students in Ireland particularly in relation to the fact that the increase would bear most heavily on students in the faculties where fees were highest. I then decided to make funds available to the university so that the increase in each case in relation to these particular faculties would be kept to a maximum of £10.
Is the Minister's Department not aware that the great bulk of the money made available to the universities is spent on these faculties? Are they so ignorant as to be in the position that they do not know that the great bulk of the money is spent on the faculties of science, engineering and medicine?
What I am concerned with is what the students pay.
The Minister and his Department should behave in an equitable fashion.
In my view this is equitable. In fact this was part of the case made by the Union of Students.
I am not interested in what young people put to the Minister. Is the Minister aware that the fees in the College of Surgeons, in medicine, are at present £300 a year?
I am concerned with the students on whom the increases would bear most heavily in relation to the National University and Trinity College.