I wish to remind the Tánaiste of the statement: "I, Ruairí Quinn, Education Spokesperson for the Labour Party hereby pledge that if elected, we will oppose and campaign against any new form of third level fees including student loans, graduate taxes and any further increase in the Student Contribution." Since then, we have had a shameless reneging on this promise to the students of Ireland and the Minister, Deputy Quinn, has decided to increase the student charge in the coming period.
Leaders' Questions
We got rid of Fianna Fáil in the meantime.
In addition, last June the Minister announced the implementation and operation of a central online system for the administration of student grants. That implementation has been disastrous under his watch. The system is failing abysmally, as third level students throughout Ireland are yet to receive decisions, let alone the grants themselves, on their applications. The Minister has confirmed that up to 40% of applications are being returned as incomplete, which flies in the face of the scheme's raison d'être, that is, to be fail-safe. Many students must resubmit their applications and decisions have only been issued in respect of 22% of all applications. Up to 50,000 students are waiting. This is unacceptable.
These chronic delays have serious implications for students. Worryingly, there is anecdotal evidence of students dropping out of college because of a lack of certainty. We are also hearing that students cannot register properly and are being denied access to various campus services. Many students are suffering a great deal of stress and deep anxiety.
Approximately 65 staff are doing the work that up to 60 local authorities did previously. Will the Government intervene in this unprecedented crisis in the administration of student grants and get the Higher Education Authority, HEA, the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, CDVEC, which administers Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, which is the grants system, and the university authorities to ensure we have a student-centric approach to the crisis? Students are number one. Everyone else must work to that end, not towards their own institutional or territorial concerns. This is the critical issue. Will the Tánaiste confirm that the Minister will take charge of this fiasco? He has washed his hands of it to date.
He might give a subvention.
He might pledge us.
Fianna Fáil's hard neck never ceases to amaze.
Press the button.
That old song is well worn out.
Change the tape.
A Deputy
Press replay.
Deputy Mattie McGrath left Fianna Fáil. He does not need to defend it.
What about the students?
The student registration fee was increased by Fianna Fáil by almost 1,000% between 1997 and when it left office in 2011.
We did not promise to decrease it.
Deputy, please.
Fianna Fáil is in no position to talk.
We never claimed that we would not do it.
We did not deceive the electorate.
For years, Fianna Fáil referred to the necessity to rationalise the way in which the student grants system was being administered. Some 66 local authorities and VECs dealt with student grants.
Empowering local authorities.
The Minister for Education and Skills has given that role to one body, namely, SUSI, which is being run by the CDVEC and has responsibility for the processing-----
The Minister has responsibility.
-----of student grants for first-time applicants. Student grant applications for existing grant holders continue to be processed by local authorities and VECs.
They are getting paid.
The Minister for Education and Skills is on top of this issue.
Sitting on top of it.
Regarding the impact on students, potential concerns among those whose grants have not yet come through and possibly being put at some disadvantage in terms of participating in college, doing exams and so on-----
Some 70%.
-----the Minister has directed the HEA to ensure the universities and institutes of technology, ITs, do not put any student whose grant has not yet come through at a disadvantage.
The Tánaiste is too removed.
Will the Government open a soup kitchen for them?
There were 66,000 completed applications for student grants this year, of which 18,000 have been completed and awarded, provisionally awarded or refused.
Some 20%.
This is November.
SUSI is awaiting documentation on 21,000 applications. The remain 27,000 applications are being processed. Additional staff have been provided to accelerate the processing, which is proceeding at a rate of 800 applications per day. CDVEC's chief executive officer, whose authority now has responsibility for this matter, is due to appear before the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection in the near future to address members' questions on this issue.
There is no chance that the Minister will address them.
The Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Quinn, shamelessly used the students of Ireland to help them get into power. Once they were in power, they discarded the students and broke every solemn pledge given to them. There is no point in the Minister nodding his head. He signed the pledge in ink. It was a scandalous, cynical election pledge that meant nothing. It meant nothing to him to make it and it meant nothing to him to break it. This is my fundamental point. There is no use in the Tánaiste trying to blame anyone else for the disastrous implementation of the online grant administration system. It is the Minister's baby. He announced it in June to the effect that it would be fail-safe. Up to 50,000 students are awaiting decisions. This is unprecedented and unacceptable. The snail's pace progress to which the Tánaiste alluded in his reply-----
A question, please.
-----is also unacceptable.
It demands a far more urgent and critical response from Government and the Minister. The thousands of students concerned are not interested in the chief executive officer coming into an Oireachtas committee next week to answer questions from Deputies which-----
Sorry, Deputy, we are over time. Could I have your question, please?
-----of course is a classic attempt by the Minister to try to deflect attention from his responsibility to come to terms with this issue in an urgent way. Additional staff, over and above the number allocated, need to be appointed to ensure a far faster operation so that students are dealt with far more quickly than currently and that the doubt, anxiety, stress and the potential risk of students pulling out of college is avoided. Will the Tánaiste agree to much more urgent intervention from the Minister than we have had to date? The bodies concerned should also be brought in because the universities are not applying themselves properly here nor is the HEA or the CDVEC.
One student in County Donegal-----
Thank you very much, Deputy. We are way over time.
-----was told not to re-apply by registered post because there was no one at the office to sign for it. That is the level of what we are dealing with it.
The Minister is dealing with this urgently. The problem of delays in the processing of student grants is not a 2012 problem.
This one is.
(Interruptions).
Please allow the Tánaiste to reply.
The problem of student grants not being processed and delays at local authority and VEC levels in the processing of student grants has gone on for years. Some local authorities were far worse than others.
This is the first time the system of processing student grants has been rationalised into a single body. There have been delays in the processing of student grants. I do not think it is in anybody's interest that Deputy Martin should try to exaggerate and frighten people. There is no need for anybody to be talking in terms of withdrawing from college. The Minister for Education and Skills has already made it clear, through the Higher Education Authority-----
(Interruptions).
Deputy Martin should listen to the answer.
He is not interested.
He keeps chattering and twittering instead of listening to the answer I am giving. If he is serious about the issue-----
I am very serious.
-----I am quite happy to give him the answer.
We are way over time.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Martin should at least afford me the courtesy of listening to the answer I am giving him. The Minister for Education and Skills has already made it clear through the Higher Education Authority, to the universities and the institutes of technology that no student whose grant has not yet come through should be disadvantaged in terms of participating in college, attending classes or lectures, doing exams and so on. Let us kill that issue of students having to leave college once and for all. That is not going to happen-----
It is happening.
-----because the Minister for Education and Skills has already dealt with that.
Additional staff have been provided to speed up the processing of grant applications. They are now being processed at a rate of 800 a day. There is, however, an outstanding problem, and there is no point ignoring it. Some of the application forms are incomplete and information is still required.
Do not blame the students.
We are over time. Sorry, Tánaiste, this matter can be dealt with by way of a parliamentary question.
If the application form has not been fully completed, it must be completed and the full information given to the City of Dublin VEC so it can complete the processing of the application.
Some 27,000 have not even been checked by SUSI.
Yesterday we raised with the Taoiseach the issue of the very large pensions being paid to former bankers who brought the State to the brink of ruin. The Taoiseach ran for cover and hid behind the Constitution, property rights and the advice of the Attorney General which, of course, he will not publish. I want to raise a related issue with the Tánaiste. Six top executives in the former Anglo Irish Bank earn in excess of €0.5 million per annum which, of course, makes an absolute mockery of the so-called cap on bankers' salaries. This bank was bailed out by Fianna Fáil, is presided over by a former Fine Gael leader, thumbs its nose at the Irish people and all the while the Labour Party sings-----
And guaranteed by Sinn Féin.
Please allow the Deputy to speak without interruption.
As the budget draws closer many people, including students, are raging that the very people who brought the State to its knees continue to enjoy exorbitant pay and pensions.
I understand from a response to a parliamentary question that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, asked Mr. Alan Dukes in April last to reduce the pay of these bankers and that Mr. Dukes told him to get lost. Does the Tánaiste think it is acceptable for a former Fine Gael leader who, by the way, continues to claim a large ministerial pension and who presides over this bankrupt toxic banks to tell the Government to get lost?
I do not think it is acceptable that former executives of Anglo Irish Bank or any of the other banks which had to be bailed out with Irish taxpayers' money should be on pensions of more than €0.5 million per year nor do I, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance think it is acceptable that executives of the current IBRC should be on salaries of that scale. That is why the Minister for Finance told the IBRC in April that those salaries should be reduced and why he has undertaken a full review of the salaries being paid. The Deputy knows that because the Minister wrote to the finance spokespersons of the political parties in this House in the summer informing them that review was underway. In recent weeks, he secured the assistance of financial advisers from Mercer to work through the various options as to how this will be dealt with. This is not acceptable to the Government and the people of this country who have had to suffer the consequences of what these banks did and the way in which they were managed. It is not acceptable that former executives of these banks are on these kinds of pensions nor is it acceptable that current executives of IBRC, in particular, are on these levels of salaries. It is being reviewed by the Minister for Finance and it is very much in hand by the Government.
It is equally unacceptable that the Government continues to take a hands off approach in all of these matters. It is very quick to move in and make the cuts where it sees what it would possibly consider a soft target. However, I cannot help but be struck by the fact that it steps very gently around the senior banking executives. It is not acceptable for a former Minister and former Fine Gael leader, who is involved in this bank, to tell the Minister for Finance to get lost because that is what happened when that conversation took place in April. They will not take salary cuts voluntarily. The hands off and the gently, gently approach, which the Government reserves for the high flyers in banking, will not work. It is not acceptable either-----
Could we have your question?
-----that a former leader of the Tánaiste's party and now allegedly a public watchdog in AIB - I refer to Dick Spring-----
Are you looking at me?
Would the Deputy put a supplementary question?
I refer to Dick Spring. He was in place when all of these gold plated pension arrangements were put in place.
Deputy, will you please listen to the Chair? You are over time so please put your question.
The Tánaiste says all of this is unacceptable and abhorrent. I will take him at his word.
Will you put your question?
A review and kicking the can down the road will not cut it. What will the Tánaiste do now, in advance of December's budget, to put these matters right and stop the practice of these executives being on salaries of over half a million euro? That must stop.
I will not ask the Deputy again.
The people of this State at least deserve that.
This Government did not have to wait for either Fianna Fáil, which is responsible for the bank bailout, or Sinn Féin, which supported the bailout, to raise this issue in the House.
(Interruptions).
We are already dealing with this issue. It is not acceptable to the Government or the people of this country that these levels of either pensions or salaries should continue to be paid. That is why the Minister for Finance has already been in discussion with the IBRC about this. He has already undertaken the review. He wrote to both the Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil spokespersons to inform them of the action-----
He did not write to ours.
-----he was taking on that last summer. He is continuing with that work. I assure the Deputy that this issue is being, and will be, dealt with.
We inherited a problem here. The problem is that Fianna Fáil approved contracts for those people and we have to find a way of addressing that issue. It is not insignificant that although the parliamentary question was asked by the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on finance yesterday, the leader of Fianna Fáil did not run with it during Leaders' Questions today. He is embarrassed about it.
(Interruptions).
I call Deputy Boyd Barrett.
(Interruptions).
In case Members did not hear me, I called Deputy Boyd Barrett. Please allow him to ask his question.
The great German playwright Bertolt Brecht said that the crime of robbing a bank is nothing compared to the crime of owning one.
Are you apologising for Sinn Féin?
His words were written in the 1930s.
(Interruptions).
The next person who causes trouble is going out of the Chamber. Please allow the Deputy to ask his question without interruption.
He is provoking us.
I am warning Members, and I do not care who they are, that they will be put out the door.
I put it to the Tánaiste that the situation with the pay and pensions of both current and former bankers and bank executives in this country gives new meaning to the words "bank robbery". This is being done in the face of ordinary citizens who are raging about the fact that they have been battered with unemployment, health and education cuts, savage cuts to their incomes and cuts to vital services for vulnerable sectors of society. They find there is a golden circle of bankers who are super-paid. People who are responsible for getting us into this crisis are walking away with pensions of hundreds of thousands of euro while members of the political establishment that was responsible for presiding over the crisis are walking away with pensions of far more than €100,000 per year. Members of the existing Cabinet will also walk away with pensions of more than €100,000 per year in many cases at the end of this Dáil.
What will the Tánaiste do about this? Will he continue to hide behind legalistic talk about contractual obligations, which is just an excuse to cover the fact that there appears to be no political will to go after these people and to address this gross inequality? The Government could simply impose a super-levy on pensions over €100,000 per year and, in fact, on all incomes over €100,000 per year. Why does it not do that? A 10% levy on all incomes over €100,000 per year would yield €2 billion extra in taxes and do away with the need for all the attacks on working people, the poor and the vulnerable. Why does the Government not do that and address this injustice?
I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett that people have suffered as a result of what has happened to this country, the way Fianna Fáil mismanaged our economy and the way the banking system was dealt with. People have suffered loss of employment, loss of businesses and the loss of services in education, health and elsewhere. They are justifiably angry when they see some of the people who were responsible for that, including people who worked in the banking system, walking away with huge pensions or retaining huge salaries within the banking system. There is political will to deal with this. That is the reason the Minister for Finance has undertaken the review of salaries in all of the banks covered by the bank bailout and by taxpayers' money. He is looking at a range of options.
The Deputy asked why we do not impose a 10% levy on pensions of over €100,000 per year. It would be good if the Deputy paid attention to what happens in the House. In July this year, my colleague the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, brought a Bill before the House, which was passed, to impose a levy of not 10% but 20% on pensions over €100,000.
The Deputy did not even miss it.
The Tánaiste did not listen to me. I said it should be imposed on all incomes. Instead of further attacking working people, the poor and the vulnerable by imposing cuts in health and education and increasing student registration fees, why does the Government not impose a 10% super-levy on all incomes over €100,000 per year in the budget? That would yield a clawback not just from people who worked in the public service, politics or in the banks earning gross pensions but from all the people in the golden circle who are being insulated from the impact of austerity, rather than attacking the vulnerable and people who have been unjustly battered and hammered with the cost of the current financial crisis. If there is political will on this matter why does it prove to be very effective when it comes to attacking lone parents, making disability cuts and cuts in health, education and social welfare, but it appears to be far less effective when addressing the gross inequalities in wealth, income and pensions in this country? Where are the results of the political will if the Tánaiste says it exists?
This Government's political will is that the days of golden circles in this country are over. There will be no insulation of golden circles under this Government.
We will see to that. The issues being considered for the budget will be announced on budget day. Given Deputy Boyd Barrett's past record, it does not matter what the Government will announce on budget day, Deputy Boyd Barrett will oppose it anyway. There is no tolerance by the Government for golden circles of past or present banks. There is no insulation of golden circles. We are dealing with pay and pensions in the banking system and we will produce a budget that is fair and balanced on budget day. I hope the Deputy will support it.