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Student Assistance Fund

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 October 2020

Tuesday, 20 October 2020

Questions (77)

Thomas Pringle

Question:

77. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if the student assistance fund will be available to students from Northern Ireland that are studying here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31699/20]

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Oral answers (6 contributions)

The budget 2021 announcement of an additional €50 million fund for college students was one of the few welcome announcements on what was an underwhelming budget day last week. In his official press release, the Minister stated that detailed work would be undertaken on how this once-off fund will operate for a submission to Government prior to its commencement. It has been reported that the fund will equate to around €250 per student. For those who have paid a €3,000 registration fee and those in receipt of the SUSI grant, will this assistance be available to cross-Border students and students from Northern Ireland?

I thank Deputy Pringle for raising this matter. There are two issues. I took the words "student assistance fund" from the question. In regard to the student assistance fund of €16 million, which is available in all colleges across the Republic of Ireland, I can confirm that students from Northern Ireland are eligible to apply for support under that scheme. The Deputy is familiar with the scheme so I will not take the time to go through it.

In regard to the €50 million once-off financial support scheme, it is my intention, along with the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, to announce the design of that scheme in the coming days. I will share my thoughts on it with the Deputy. It is likely that there will be a once-off top up payment to people in receipt of the SUSI grant, which could include people from Northern Ireland. There is also the possibility of having a once-off return or a rebate of some of the registration fees.

The figure of €250 has been out there. People have arrived at that by taking a figure of 200,000 full-time students in higher education in Ireland and dividing it by €50 million which equals €250 per student. The long and the short of it is that if a student is in receipt of the SUSI grant or paid a student contribution fee, which students in the North would have, then he or she will be as entitled to access the scheme as are students in the Republic. They are likely to be the two vehicles. I can revert to the Deputy when I have details of the scheme, which is likely to be in about a week or so.

I thank the Minister for that important clarification. According to the figures from the HEA for 2017 and 2018, only 130 students from the Six Counties are studying in the South, which seems to be an appallingly low figure. Is that something the Minister would examine? Perhaps he can check whether that is an accurate figure. To my mind, it seems very low.

We should encourage more students to move in this direction. The fact that there will be financial supports for them is vitally important. How does the Minister intend to support a plan to have more students come here? I would like to hear his thoughts on that. It is not the basis of the question, but it is something he could think about.

I am delighted the Deputy asked me about that. I would be very pleased to meet him and other Deputies from Border counties, including Donegal. I have had a couple of really interesting meetings in recent days regarding North-South co-operation. I met the President of Queens University in his capacity as the president of Universities Ireland, which represents all the universities on the island of Ireland. I met the leader of the SDLP, Colum Eastwood, MLA, to discuss collaboration with Derry, which I know is an issue close to the Deputy's heart in Donegal and Letterkenny. I also met Diane Dodds, MLA, Minister for the Economy, which is where higher education rests in the Northern Ireland Executive.

In the context of Brexit, there are many opportunities and a necessity to do an awful a lot more in the research and universities space. If one takes out the politics, emblems and all that from the map of the island of Ireland, there is a gaping space in the north west.

My initial view is that we need to get on with getting the application in on the Connacht-Ulster technological university, which again, I am hoping will be in by the end of the year and at the very start of 2021. We have commitments under New Decade, New Approach on the Magee campus. I would be very interested and there is potential for a cross-party consensus on how we might move ahead with higher education. Deputy Conway-Walsh and I have spoken on this also. Perhaps in the coming weeks we could have a get-together and brainstorm on this issue.

That is something that would be worthwhile. On the Connacht-Ulster alliance, there is a campus in Killybegs in the tourism college which also needs to be protected into the future. Strangely, Letterkenny, has been the biggest threat to it.

We need to look at why it is cheaper for many students in Donegal to go to college in Belfast, because rents are so much lower there. Even with the student fees that one has to pay up there, it is far cheaper for them to be in college there. Perhaps that is also a reason students do not come south because the costs down here are too expensive for them. The reason we do not have movement of students down south is something that needs to be looked at. I look forward to future engagement with the Minister on this issue and I thank him.

I will commit on the record to come back to Deputy Pringle on the figure of how many students from Northern Ireland are studying in the Republic. My own instinct is that it will be much higher than that. I wonder is it a designation issue or how people self-designate but I will ask the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and will revert to the Deputy.

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