I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:
Dáil Éireann notes the significant expansion in funding for further and higher education, particularly relating to the creation of extra places, and believes that:
– there is a need for increased dedicated student accommodation, and
– additional resources for student support should be targeted at increasing participation by the most disadvantaged groups.
I welcome this second opportunity in two weeks to discuss education during Private Members' time. In particular, I welcome this opportunity to debate the issue of third level provision support and accommodation.
Having been attacked by the Opposition last week for spending too much on third level, being attacked this evening for spending too little shows an admirable flexibility on behalf of the Opposition. I suspect that this creative approach again demonstrates that the Opposition recognises the success of this Government in the area of education generally.
It is a significant constraint within this House that there is no opportunity for the specific object of Opposition ire to respond at or close to the end of a debate such as this. Last week I would certainly have been eager to respond to the regrouped party line of the Opposition on Wednesday night. Those contributions demonstrated without doubt that the Opposition can give it but it cannot take it. It seems it believes that it is disreputable to expect it to be accountable for its actions in Government only a year and a half ago. It expects its record to be accepted as a tabula rasa. I assure the Opposition that we have no intention of being deflected by the sort of self-serving attacks which we heard last week.
The House should note that none of the substantive points which I made in my contribution were refuted. Instead, most Opposition contributions implicitly admitted their failures by calling events of less than two years ago ancient history. However, this did not include Deputy O'Sullivan, who was indignant that anyone could dare question the Labour Party's record. I reassure the Deputy that I was not attacking my predecessor. The education failures of the Rainbow Government should be laid at the door of the entire Government and not just the then Minister for Education.
It is interesting that we have moved from a debate on targeting educational disadvantage to one on expensive, untargeted and ill-thought out proposals. There are a number of specific areas included in the Labour Party's motion and I would like to address them all. Within this, we should take the opportunity to debate wider issues of participation in third level and the long-term requirements of the sector.
Deputies will be aware that the last Government chose specifically to reject the principal recommendation of the Review Group on Student Support concerning third level maintenance grants. The group, under the chairmanship of Donal de Buitléir, proposed that extra funding should be directed in the first instance at improving grants. Instead of implementing this, it was decided to concentrate all funding on the abolition of undergraduate fees. This was certainly a very significant decision, although attempts to compare it with the great expansions in education initiated by Donogh O'Malley and Fianna Fáil were laughable.
When this abolition was announced we were all informed that the decision would, if I may quote the Labour Party, "throw open the gates of higher education to the underprivileged". This was an initiative which was directly targeted at helping the middle and higher income earners who then paid fees, as opposed to the roughly 50 per cent who had them paid by the State. Allowing for the under-representation of poorer families in higher education, by definition this was an initiative which would very specifically target resources at the better off sections of society.
Perhaps the most ingenious argument used at the time was that, although it was admitted that poorer families would gain nothing by the initiative, it would increase participation through the psychological effects of feeling that third level was now somehow more accessible. This fundamentally ignored the realities of economic and educational disadvantage and has proven as empty as it sounded in the first place.
What is incredible is that many grant holders and, therefore, by definition those more in need, actually lost money because of so-called free fees. It was estimated at the time that grant holders could lose between £235 and £280 each because of the removal of covenants. This conscious cutback in support available to grant holders makes Labour's new love-bombing of students on grants more than a bit surprising.
Participation in higher education by poorer families has not and will not increase because of this decision. I have said it before and will say it again: this decision has not helped a single child from the most disadvantaged groups in our society to attend a higher education institution. This conclusion is absolutely incontrovertible. I will later outline in more detail my views on how we can address under-representation, but it is enough to say at this point that I believe that diversity and appropriateness of provision and targeted interventions are the key and these form the core of this Government's approach to the sector.
It is estimated that next year the overall cost of meeting tuition fees in third level will be £140 million. There is absolutely no doubt that this has, heretofore, significantly constrained the ability of my Department to obtain further funding for targeted interventions. The year 1995 marked a dramatic discontinuity from policies initiated post-1989 and, in particular, saw the brakes being applied to spending in many other areas of education. I see no other explanation for the proposal in 1997, when the phase out of fees began to be a significant force, to freeze school funding and cut primary teacher numbers.
These concerns were voiced in the press by Democratic Left at the time of the so-called free fees initiative. Labour's new partners opposed the abolition of fees it seems because it would be regressive and undermine the ability of the system to properly expand access. I look forward to it outlining its current views on this matter and whether or not it will endeavour to have the Labour Party reverse its decision once it is firmly within its welcoming bosom.
Deputy O'Sullivan asked me last week to expand on my statement that, while I believe the decision was flawed, I do not believe it should be reversed. This is quite simple, the opportunity cost at the time could not justify the decision as has been clearly demonstrated since. However, there are many in middle-income families who have benefited from the decision and rely on it. The de Buitléir proposals at the time would, in all probability, have helped this group, but I do not believe that a system could be found to address their needs were the fees to be reintroduced.
Perhaps more significantly, we now have a Minister for Finance who recognises the need to invest in other areas of education as well. With the largest ever increase in primary funding and significant extra funding in a range of areas, this Government has demonstrated that it will make sure that other sectors are not held back because of this one decision. As such, this Government is dealing with the principal negative effect of the initiative.
The motion before the House proposes the abolition of the student registration charge. This represents a remarkable change of mind on behalf of the Labour Party seeing as it is the originator of the charge in the first place.
It may help if I remind the House that the charge was created at the time of the abolition of fees in order to specifically cover the cost of exams, student services and registration. Originally set at £150, it was said at the time of its introduction by the then Government that it would be reviewed again after two years. When I took up office, the two years were up and I received many representations from institutions to say that the cost of these services was, in fact, on average about £400 per pupil per year. In light of this, I agreed that they could increase the charge by £100. This was followed by a further 4 per cent increase this year in line with the general rise in fees. I listened to the proposal put forward by Deputy O'Shea and it seems his proposal would result in a further increase of £140 to the existing charge given the definitions and criteria he outlined. The House will appreciate that fees still exist and still rise every year, it is just that the State now pays them all.
The impact of the increase has been to provide a sounder and more secure funding base for the services covered. I am concerned, and I share those of Members, that progress on implementing a more fully transparent system has been too slow and I have asked students to supply information where difficulties have arisen. I remind the House that this increase has fallen heaviest on my Department, as it pays the charge on behalf of roughly 50 per cent of students.
The last Government's attachment to the charge was underlined by the specific inclusion of a provision in the Universities Act to allow the charge. On a number of occasions the Opposition, and certain student leaders, have sought to present the increases as, in some way, the reintroduction of fees by the backdoor; this is nonsense. Undergraduate fees would now run at roughly £2,000 per student, if still in place. I assure the House that were they to come back, which they will not, it would be through the front door following a full and honest public debate about third level. This charge is not paid by roughly 50 per cent of students who receive higher education grants and, therefore, its abolition would benefit only the better off sections of society. At a cost of £12 million, it seems that the inescapable conclusion from this motion is that the Labour Party is again willing to prioritise the interests of the better off at the expense of others seeking access to education.
The motion before the House calls for a range of increases in the student grants scheme. The total list of measures to which the Leader of the Labour Party signed up on the back of a truck in Molesworth Street would amount to more than £100 million a year. Grants are paid to roughly 50 per cent of students attending higher education. As such it could not be described as a targeted measure aimed at helping the poorest of students. We should aim to increase the income available to students in need but, because of finite resources, we must have priorities and must target those most in need.
The policy I have followed is to increase payments in line with inflation and increase income limits in line with the average industrial wage. While the Labour Party now finds this inadequate, I would remind it that this is another policy initiated by it. While de Buitléir recommended some of the changes proposed in this motion, they were rejected by the Labour Party in Government. Because of this, I find tonight's protestations of concern difficult to take seriously.
As my party indicated in Opposition, and as the current Opposition rightly points out, it is our belief that significant improvements in the grants scheme are required. As we pointed out in the relevant discussion document, we also believe in prioritising and that it is reasonable to deliver things across the lifetime of a Government. It is my intention to first seek to deal with the more significant anomalies or disincentives in the grants scheme before dealing with the more general issue of levels.
The Opposition has not pointed out this evening that we are already implementing our largest single pledge relating to grants by introducing grants for post-leaving certificate students. Estimated to cost almost £16 million next year, these grants will benefit students often from the most modest backgrounds who were for so long neglected by the Opposition. Even though it was included in the Rainbow Coalition's Programme for Government, PLC students were not given grants and were forgotten as others benefited from the largesse being spread around. Continuing this policy, tonight's motion again ignores PLC students, perhaps out of a sense of guilt.
This new grants scheme has involved very complex administrative arrangements and the first payments have been delayed but I assure the House that my officials are doing all they can to ensure that the first payments are issued as soon as possible, I hope within the next six weeks.
The administration of the overall grants scheme needs attention. I accept the various recommendations of de Buitléir and I am persuaded by the need to move toward a central grants authority with flexible methods of payment. This is proving significantly more complicated than I first expected. In the meantime, I have addressed one of the ongoing problems with the scheme, the problems caused by paying local authorities in arrears. Because of my move on this, grants have been paid significantly earlier this term.
I accept that students in many parts of the State are experiencing difficulties in finding good, affordable accommodation and I welcome this opportunity to discuss the issue. This is a subset of the wider housing squeeze which has been growing in recent years. As income levels rise, and demand for accommodation rises, students are left competing with people who have greater spending power.
Because of this, an across the board increase in direct grants would have little direct impact on helping students to compete in the rented accommodation sector. Grants are paid to roughly 50 per cent of students, only some of whom are affected by what is happening to rents. Increasing grants for all is not a measure targeted at the students in need. What is described in the motion as an emergency package is a knee-jerk package which at great expense would leave the problem unresolved.
The core need is to increase the availability of dedicated student housing with a resultant release of pressure on the rented sector. In Dublin there are almost 3,000 student residences. These have been developed since the late 1980s through a series of self-financing initiatives. My officials have held discussions with colleges on this issue and we have signalled our willingness to assist further significant student housing developments. I hope we will be in a position to announce some movement on this shortly. At this stage direct State aid is not required, though tax relief is likely to play a role.
This is not a problem which has arisen overnight. Accommodation is something which, by necessity, cannot be dealt with on a short-term basis. It is noticeable that the Labour Party's manifesto for the last election did not even mention student accommodation. In this context, the House will forgive me if I reject the scatter-gun proposal contained in the motion and look instead to the policy which I have outlined.
The feedback we have received from the Higher Education Authority and the colleges is that the problem is concentrated in the Dublin area and is not as acute in the locations of other colleges. There are 7,000 college residence places provided at the moment by various colleges including the colleges of education. Limerick and Cork are doing well with 1,700 places, while UCD has 1,472 places. However, we need to do more, particularly in Dublin.
The motion proposes a review of policy concerning what is termed the "more equitable and rational distribution of student numbers throughout the State.". In general terms I agree with the idea that we should have a balanced spread of provision through our higher education institutions. This said, I do not see the potential for redistributing places or disproportionately concentrating future expansions.
Students coming to Dublin place pressure on the rented sector in the city, but it is not credible to duplicate the provision in its colleges throughout the State. It would be inefficient and damaging to quality to adopt the "one for everybody in the audience" approach implicit in the motion. In addition, Dublin contains the areas with the lowest participation in third level in the State. It is therefore essential that we increase places in Dublin, particularly at sub-degree level. It is a matter of some considerable concern to me that it has proved so difficult over the last year to create extra sub-degree places in key areas in Dublin.
The Government is absolutely committed to making sure colleges throughout the State are given the opportunity to grow. That is why we have initiated the largest ever third level building programme through the Education Technology Investment Fund. As a result more students will have the opportunity to study in high quality facilities in their home regions if they wish to do so. We have already increased the number of third level places by more than 8,000. Apprenticeship places now stand at 5,500 and in the PLC sector we have increased the numbers by 5,000. That is real access.
The Government has already implemented its most expensive commitment on grants and will, as resources permit, make further improvements. This said, we are determined to target resources on the issue of broadening and deepening participation in further and higher education. We are committed to targeting the most disadvantaged groups with the key areas being summed up as access, diversity and progression.
The promotion of access must deal with tackling disincentives of tradition and support. In particular, colleges must reach out and additional support should be available where it is needed. Between direct funding from my Department, and indirect funding from the HEA, almost £900,000 is being spent on this area in the current year. I hope to go significantly beyond this next year. As part of this I want to deal with the issue of retention in certain parts of the system which seems to relate to background in many cases. We have already initiated research on the area of attrition and we will have a significant initiative to announce to deal with attrition in third level education.
A diversity of provision is also essential to expand access. It is not good enough to concentrate on the supposed high status degree level courses. A system which is to have any credibility must have a balance and the opportunities provided by any sub-degree level courses are a critical part of any effective plan to promote participation. I see this sector expanding and will not tolerate any attempt to undermine it.
I would like to direct the House to a shining example of the benefits of diversity of provision — the National Certificate in Manufacturing Technology. This course has already provided 300 people, many of whom are second chance students, with the opportunity to access, through a non-standard route, innovative education and training on the way to a well paid job. A further 500 places will be available in institutes of technology in January.
Similarly, the long neglected, much promised and unfunded institute of technology in Blanchardstown will make a major contribution to expanding access and diversity. The £20 million provided for the first development phase of the institute is in place and is a concrete demonstration of a Government which is delivering in comparison to the last Government which, like a mountain goat, had a loud cry but little wool.
Ensuring progression between levels is also a key to expanding participation. The low level of progression at the moment is simply unacceptable and I have said on many occasions that I expect institutions to join the effort to expand its operation. The qualifications Bill, which I will be publishing shortly, will be an important part of guaranteeing routes of progression through further and higher education, which is essential for students suffering educational disadvantage.
The problems pointed to in the motion are important and need to be addressed. This said, the broad scale, untargeted approach to solving the problems is simply not credible. The net effect of the proposals would be to spend many millions of pounds on once again using limited resources and not helping those most in need. The empty opportunism of the Labour Party is not just to be found in its radical change of position, but in the fact that it is actually calling for the abandonment of policies which it introduced in the first place. It was the Labour Party which created and enshrined in law the registration charge it now wants to abolish, it was the Labour
Party which decided to confine grants and income thresholds to limited increases but now wants huge increases, and it was the Labour Party which failed to mention student accommodation in its last manifesto but now wants it to be a priority.
We need a balanced approach which targets funding at those most in need and deals with the real issue of accommodation in an effective manner. I am already working with colleges to expand access and address the accommodation issue. This is the most credible and progressive way to address the concerns of those most in need.