asked the Minister for Education is she will amend legislation to enable third level grants to be recouped to local authorities in the same years that they are paid to applicants, as the delay is causing financial difficulties for local authorities.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Third Level Education Grants.
3.
The terms of the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act, 1968, do not preclude recoupment of moneys to local authorities in the same year that they are paid to applicants. Accordingly, amending legislation as suggested by the Deputy would not be required to give effect to the proposal.
Since the introduction of the higher education grants scheme in 1968, however, payments have been made to the local authorities on the basis of recouping them as early as possible in the following year for the previous financial year's expenditure on higher education grants.
To move to a current year basis of recoupment would require a 100 per cent increase in the first year in the provision of higher education grants. In view of existing resource constraints I am not at present in a position to fund such an increase.
The Minister is surely aware that all local authorities are strapped for cash and to expect them to carry an added burden of, in our case in Kildare, £350,000 per year is hardly fair, seeing that they are only acting as agents for the Department of Education and that the Minister and the Government probably have some means available to them to raise these funds. All it would need would be for the Government to double the money for one year and then pay within the year the grants paid by the council.
That would be a most desirable way to do it but to do so at one fell swoop would require a 100 per cent sum in one year in a once off allocation. The pressures and constraints on Exchequer resources mean that this proposal and other proposals with significant expenditure implications would be difficult to implement. Clause 7 of the higher education grant scheme provides that grants payable by local authorities shall be issued to students as early as possible in each term of the academic year. Prompt payment of higher education grants to eligible students is a matter for the local authorities who are statutorily entrusted with administering the scheme. I am sympathetic to what Deputy Power is saying because all of us who have been involved in local authorities know of the pressures with regard to this issue. We are faced with the dilemma, if we take up that proposal, of the need to find in one year the 100 per cent necessary.
To get over the one fell swoop difficulty, seeing that the grants are usually paid in two instalments, will the Minister consider that she, too, might allow herself a two year programme of action to catch up on the arrears, and phase the process in over a two or three year period?
I will undertake to discuss the matter with my colleagues, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Finance.
As a compromise might the Minister reimburse the local authorities the full cost of administering the scheme and the cost of serving the debt they entered into in order to administer the scheme? This would not require raising £100 million.
It is another question, but if a solution could be found to this matter the solution would be preferable along the lines suggested by Deputy Power, because that would be a once off payment.
The one I am suggesting is less costly.
All suggestions will be looked at.