I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me the opportunity of raising this matter on the Adjournment Debate. I should like to give a little of my time to my colleague, Deputy McCormack.
Adjournment Debate. - Students' Maintenance Grants.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
The decision to introduce a means test for ESF maintenance grants for students of regional technical colleges is a big mistake. It is a retrograde step, a decision that will cause major hardship for many families, a decision that will put third level education beyond the reach of many other families.
Sligo Regional Technical College is in the heart of my constituency. The catchment are is Sligo, Leitrim, parts of Mayo and Donegal, and north Roscommon. Nowhere have the ESF maintenance grants, as at present administered, been more significant both in the build-up of the college and in making available the opportunity of third level education to a large number of students who would otherwise have been forced to opt out.
In turn, the success of the college has been an important factor in the economy of the whole north-west region and, in particular, in the attraction of industry. The graduates who have been forced to emigrate — and we have in that region the highest emigration rates in the entire country — have gone with very valuable educational skills, equal to anything they encountered in their age groups in the host countries.
Now there is to be a means test for maintenance grants. This will result in up to 60 per cent of all future students and those changing courses losing out. Some will be deprived of the grant entirely, some will have only partial grants and some will receive nominal grants. We must remember that the means test limits are very tight. For instance, a family with two children will be disqualified from any grant at all if they have a gross income — that is gross income, not take-home pay — of around £13,000. The average industrial wage is higher than that. They will lose part of the grant if they have a gross income of around £10,000.
Once again the PAYE people will be hit hardest. The harsh reality is that many parents in the Sligo RTC area, and the other RTC and Dublin Institute of Technology areas, will have to tell their sons and daughters that they will have to forget about their plans to go forward to third level education.
The RTCs have been particularly successful in attracting students from farming and manual worker backgrounds, leaving a very balanced socio-economic student body profile. Now all of this is at risk.
I have spoken about the damage that the new means test decision will do to the educational pattern and prospects in the Sligo RTC catchment area, the one I know best. I feel sure that the position will not be much different in Galway or in other areas.
All around the country students are now studying for the leaving certificate but their educational fate will be decided by this decision of the Government, irrespective of the results they attain in the examination. The Minister may well say that he wants to spread the available EC money. In December Minister Davern said that he would assign a permanent official from his Department to Brussels in order to tap into EC funded programmes. That is what he should be doing. He should be out there obtaining additional funds, and not just accepting the existing funding and spreading it around more thinly.
I know that the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, has a particular personal interest in the regional technical colleges. I confidently appeal to him to ensure that the regressive decision to means test the grants will be rescinded.
I support Deputy Nealon in demanding that this unnecessary step be rescinded immediately. The grants are 65 per cent EC funded. I fail to understand why a means test should be introduced at this time. Up to 25,000 students throughout the country could be affected by this, up to 4,000 of them in the regional technical college in Galway, each receiving up to a maximum of £39 a week grant which does not pay for their accommodation. It costs about £25 more to keep a student in Galway. Parents with a third child going into the regional technical college this year would have to pay £75 per week and without the grant it would cost up to £200. This would be an impossible task for many. Apart from that, the spending power of students in Galway on accommodation and other things brings in about £250,000 a week to Galway. I demand that this means test proposal be abandoned.
Some 9,000 additional places are being provided in third level education. Enrolments are now 75,000 and will increase to 90,000 in the next four or five years. The number of students on ESF courses has grown from 10,600 in 1986 to 22,200 in 1991. The expenditure on ESF courses in vocational education committee colleges has grown from £35 million in 1986 to £86 million in 1991. Of the students on ESF courses, funding from Brussels is available for 19,600 students only. The State, therefore, has to meet 100 per cent of the cost of the balance of 2,600 students at a cost of approximately £9 million. Deputies will be aware that many of those students come from homes in which parents can well afford to pay.
The choice was between limiting the number going on to such courses within the limits of available funds or trying to accommodate more students by applying a means test. The latter solution was the only equitable one. The emphasis in student grant support has to be on helping all those in the lower income group. My party in Government do not make any apologies for helping the less well-off. That is the important aspect of this change. In a context of limited resources this can only be done through means testing. At present, about half of all students in third level receive grant support. About one-third of the students in universities receive grant support and over 87 per cent of students in vocational education committee third level colleges.
Apart from the existing ESF aided grant scheme all third level grant and related schemes operate on the principle of income assessment for determining the eligibility of applicants for maintenance grants. In the context of developing greater equity and rationalisation the Government decided that the same income eligibility criteria should apply for the maintenance grant element of all higher education grant schemes. The criteria will operate in the case of all new entrants to third level with effect from September 1992.
Even with the proposed means testing the ESF students on those courses will still have a considerable advantage, since they will not have to pay any fees, regardless of income. The revised arrangements regarding maintenance grants will not apply to students already enrolled on ESF aided third level courses.
As well as achieving greater equity, the Government have been concerned to ensure in so far as resources allow, a balanced improvement in student support and I have recently been pleased to announce a range of measures which will lead to a fairer and more equitable distribution of the available funds. Mature students, families with more than one child attending third level education and lone parents, will benefit under the package of reforms. The principal improvements being introduced for new entrants to third level this year are as follows: the income eligibility ceiling for families will be increased by £2,000 for each child after the first child attending third level education. That is of great significance because many families now have more than one child attending third level education and they do not have any relief. This applies especially to PAYE workers. Income eligibility will be assessed on the income and income limits in the year of entry to third level rather than as here-tofore, on the limits in the year which the student sat the leaving certificate. Mature students who secure a place in a third level institution will automatically be considered to meet the academic requirements for the award of a grant. Second chance education, especially for people with working class backgrounds, has to be a great new development in third level education.
Mature students may be assessed on the basis of their own incomes and, if married, their spouses income rather than on their parents' income, which has been the case up to now. Lone parents' welfare payments under the lone parents' allowance scheme will be excluded from the asessment of income for grant eligibility. Income limits and mainenance grants will be index-linked in 1992.
I also announced the setting up of a new review committee to develop more equitable income assessment criteria. The committee will comprise representatives of concerned Departments, including Agriculture, Education, Environment, Finance, Health, Social Welfare and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.
It is clear that the objective of all the measures referred to is to achieve absolute equity in the distribution of available funds. Within these limits the means testing referred to will ensure that a greater number of students from lower income families will be enabled to participate in third level education. I commend to the House this most important new development which will open up third level education opportunities for a large segment of the community who up to now were being denied such an opportunity.