I wish to share time with Deputy Naughten.
Adjournment Debate. - Higher Education Grants.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
This debate is opportune. Earlier today the president of the USI, Mr. Dermot Lohan, and members of its executive who are in the public galllery, lobbied Deputies on the serious matter of the hardship caused for thousands of young students by the inadequacy of maintenance grants.
Despite the fact that the rainbow coalition Government introduced free tuition fees for all third level students in 1995 it is becoming increasingly difficult for many parents to send their children to third level colleges because of high rental accommodation costs and the increased cost of living. According to the USI poverty survey for 1997-98 it costs a student from outside Dublin £466.24 per month to live and study in the city. This will increase to at least £550 per month or £137.50 per week for the 1998-99 academic year because of the spiralling cost of accommodation which works out at between £50 and £55 per week on average and the increased cost of living, including travelling expenses, college book fees, food, clothes, course materials and other essential items. The total cost to parents to send their children to university in Dublin, based on a 36-week year, is now in the region of £5,000. Traditionally, UCD and Trinity College have attracted large numbers of Kerry students. I can see this tradition dying because of parents' inability to pay.
The maximum maintenance grant is £1,652 and is paid to students whose parents earn less than £18,308 and have three children. A family earning more than £19,525 with fewer than four children receives no assistance. The burden on low income families and those on social welfare is particularly onerous. The maximum maintenance grant is hopelessly inadequate and meets only 33 per cent of actual living costs for 1998-99. Many students may be forced to abandon third level education as a result.
Professor Pat Clancy of UCD found that students' chances of attending college depend on their socio-economic background. In his publication, Access to College — Patterns of Continuity and Change, he shows that students whose parents are classed as higher professionals are six times more likely to attend college than students whose parents are classed as semi-skilled or unskilled manual workers. Speaking recently at the conferral ceremony in Dublin City University the president of the college said that he was ashamed to admit that universities in Ireland were still almost exclusively for the relatively well off. There are approximately 6,000 students in full-time third level education from semi-skilled or unskilled manual worker backgrounds. They are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet and survive on the paltry maintenance grant.
There have been many calls for radical reform of the maintenance grants scheme. In 1994 the Higher Education Authority steering committee on the future of third level education recommended that the adjacent rate should be increased to £1,500 and the non-adjacent rate to £3,000. Many middle and lower income families are unable to send their children to college. The recommendations of the Butler committee should be implemented. Accommodation should also be provided on campus.
Maintenance grants need to be increased dramatically if we are to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend third level. CIE is proposing to increase its charges while it costs up to £80 per week to stay in digs in Dublin. It costs young people more than £5,000 on average to live in Dublin. The maintenance grant meets only a small percentage of this. Income limits must also be increased. They were increased by 77p per week in the budget. This did not match inflation. If we are serious about developing our economy we must look seriously at the maintenance grants system.
Ar an gcéad dul síos ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh Uachtarán agus oifigigh Chumann na Mac-Léinn Aontaithe.
Tá súil agam go mbainfidh siad taithneamh as a gcuairt anseo agus go mbeidh breis eolais acu ag deireadh na díospóireachta.
The higher education grants scheme with the vocational education scholarship scheme and the ESF-aided maintenance grants scheme comprise the third level maintenance grants schemes. Sixty per cent of certificate and diploma students in the technological sector and 40 per cent of students in the university sector are eligible for maintenance grants. In the 1996-97 academic year almost 48,000 students received grants under these schemes at a cost of £91 million in 1996.
We are engaged in an ongoing review of all aspects of the third level maintenance grants schemes. It has been the practice in recent years to increase maintenance grants in line with inflation as measured by the change in the consumer price index. The inflation figure provided by the Central Statistics Office for the period mid-February 1997 to mid-February 1998 was 1.7 per cent. The value of the maintenance grant was therefore increased by 1.7 per cent for the 1998-99 academic year.
It has also been the practice in recent years to increase the reckonable income limits in line with movements in the average industrial wage. The figures provided by the Central Statistics Office are computed in each case to March of the previous year. The average industrial wage increase for the period March 1996 to March 1997 was 3.2 per cent. The reckonable income limits for the 1998-99 academic year were therefore increased by 3.2 per cent. This increase was also applied to the allowance by which the income limits may be increased in respect of other family members pursuing a course of study. The definition of eligible courses has also been extended to include those family members attending a recognised PLC course, student nurse training, student Garda training, those participating in certain CERT courses and those attending full-time Teagasc courses in an agricultural college. In each such case the reckonable income limits are increased by £2,060. The full maintenance grant for the current academic year has been increased to £1,652 at the non-adjacent rate and £660 at the adjacent rate.
Our priority in relation to student support has been to honour the commitment given in the Programme for Government, An Action Programme for the Millennium, to introduce equitable support for students attending PLC courses. We have honoured that commitment by way of introducing a maintenance grants scheme for students attending post-leaving certificate courses. The scheme was issued to vocational education committees in August and it is anticipated that the first payment to students, which will be retrospective to September, will be made not later than January next. The grants payable under this scheme will be at the same level as the third level maintenance grants.
We are committed to ongoing improvements to the third level student support schemes, including increasing the value of maintenance grants and income limits as resources permit. The Deputies will appreciate that such improvements must have regard to overall resource constraints and competing demands in the third level sector. In this regard the creation of additional places at third level is critical. We have increased the number of places significantly and will continue to do so, particularly in the context of skills shortages to ensure that those who attend third level will virtually be guaranteed a job.
I thank the Deputies for raising this important matter. The record of my party in investing in education will be maintained in perpetuity.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.50 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1 October 1998.