Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has a duty to “come clean with students and families and tell them what they can expect in new charges’’ over the next four years, a student leader said today.
Gary Redmond, president of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), made the demand amid signals from Mr Quinn that the student contribution charge could increase to €3,000 by 2015.
Last year, the charge increased by €250 to €2,250. Mr Quinn has signalled the contribution will increase by €250 for the next three years.
Mr Quinn told students at the University of Limerick: "We now have this €2,000 fee, €2,250 next [academic] year, and it is probably increasing up to €3,000. . . . That is kind of the downside of the story."
During the election, Mr Quinn, then Labour Party spokesperson on education, made a public pledge there would be no increase in student fees or cuts in student supports if elected to Government. He also promised to reverse the €500 increase announced in Budget 2011 by the previous Government.
Asked about this yesterday, he said: "With regard to breaking promises, I didn't feel great about it all. I still don't feel great about it, but I have to get on with it."
Mr Redmond said today: “There was always the suspicion that the Minister was going to increase it over the lifetime of his government, and pander to his backbenchers. The Minister has a duty to come clean with students and families and tell them the detail of what they can expect over the next four years’’.
Mr Quinn compared student charges in Ireland with tuition charges of up to £9,000 in England. He also stressed how over 40 per cent of students who are eligible for grant support will be exempt from student charges.
At present, the student contribution charge generates only about 10 per cent of the €1.3 billion allocated by the State to higher education annually.
Last year, the Hunt Report said annual funding for higher education must increase by €500 million a year by 2020, as colleges deal with a projected 30 per cent increase in student numbers.
In its election manifesto Fine Gael also made commitments to maintaining access to higher education by freezing the student contribution at €2,000.
Mr Redmond said: “Minister Quinn and this Government have now clearly abandoned any pretence at even trying to keep their promises to students and families that they made prior to the last election. While in opposition the Minister decried successive student fee increases. However, now fees of €3,000 per year are on the Minister’s agenda. This betrayal will be long remembered by families already struggling with increased costs.’’
The USI leader said the Minister can “dress up these increases in any manner he sees fit, but the reality of the situation is that these decisions will accelerate the number of young people forced to leave the country and sentence many more to long term unemployment”.