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LAST UPDATE | 3 Jul
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said the government plans to make permanent changes to the area of students fees that are “sustainable” and warned against “speculation” and “noise” about what might be announced in the Budget.
Speaking to reporters in Osaka, Japan today, where he attended Expo 2025, he said Higher Education Minister James Lawless will bring an options paper, prepared by his department, to Cabinet.
Some of those options are understood to be one incremental universal cut and a second reduction for those in greater need, but the Taoiseach said today that nothing has been decided.
Sources confirmed to The Journal that there will be a reduction to student fees in the budget, as it is clearly set out in the programme for government as a key objective.
However, it remains unclear if the reduction will be against the current €2,000 or the €3,000.
It has been signalled that it could fall by €500 or greater, but whether the final figure will be €1,500 or €2,500 is still up in the air.
It is understood that reducing the fees from €3,000 to €2,000 on a permanent basis will cost €103 million.
The student contribution fee has been temporarily reduced for the past three years as part of cost-of-living packages accompanying the budget.
The fees had been €3,000 before being temporarily reduced to €2,000.
But last week, Lawless said that a cost-of-living package will not form part of Budget 2026, meaning the temporary drop in the student contribution fee would “reset” and revert back to €3,000 per academic year.
“All of us in any walk of life have to play the hands we’re dealt,” Lawless told RTÉ on Sunday.
He added: “If I don’t have a cost-of-living package. I can’t do those kind of measures that were done last year.”
The Taoiseach said today that there is a process to follow, and first of all, Lawless has to sit down and engage with Chambers on what the budget is for higher education.
Opposition politicians have been criticising the mooted increase and have repeatedly asked the Government to give clarity to parents ahead of the upcoming academic year.
Lawless told his party colleagues at their parliamentary party meeting this week that he planned a comprehensive overhaul of student supports, including grants and fees.
Meanwhile Tánaiste Simon Harris told his party that the budget would make permanent structural changes to areas such as education and the cost of childcare.
He said that not having a separate cost of living package does not equal not helping people with the cost of living.
Speaking in the Dáil today during Leaders’ Questions, Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said Lawless had “dropped a bombshell” and called on the government to “level with parents and students”.
She added that Lawless’s comments on “playing the hands we’re dealt” were “utterly galling” and “incredibly tone-deaf”.
Whitmore also said that Lawless had “actively stacked the deck” against students and families and “essentially told them to suck it up”.
She added that people “believed promises in the Programme for Government to reduce student fees” and they have been “betrayed”.
“They don’t have this money down the back of a sofa. They’ll have to scrimp and save and sacrifice to cover this increase, do you not understand that Minister?” Whitmore asked Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, who was taking Leaders’ Questions.
Donohoe however hit out at Whitmore for saying the government had “stacked the deck” against students.
He added that supports are available and that over 140,000 students benefit from Free-Fees and that 60,000 students benefit from lower forms of student contribution fees.
“All of that is in place because of our desire to ensure supports are in place to help,” said Donohoe.
He added that as the government works to move towards a “normal budget”, the government will also look at how progress can be made on the affordability and access to higher and further education.
Donohoe also remarked that the student contribution fee would be “outlined” in October’s budget.
However, Whitmore said Donohoe was “clearly not listening to what parents and students are saying”.
“They believed you when you said your government would continue to reduce student fees, it really couldn’t be any simpler,” said Whitmore.
“Will parents be paying €2,000 in September, or €3,000?”
Donohoe said he was providing a “clear and honest answer” and that the government “has to make decisions as part of our budget process so we can ensure that the changes that we make are affordable, sustainable, and can be built upon in the years ahead”.
He added: “We’ll be in a position to give a clear answer to that when our budgetary work is done.”
Earlier, Donohoe had been pressed on the issue by Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy, who said the government was “all over the place”.
Carthy said he had “one simple question, when students get their bill in September will they be paying €2,000 or €3,000?”
However, Donohoe began by remarking that the question provided an opportunity to “outline what the government is already doing”.
He said half of students are supported through the SUSI grant (Student Universal Support Ireland) and that the threshold has been increased by 15% to ensure more students can avail of it.
He added that the grant is now also available to students in part-time or hybrid education.
Donohoe said the budgets put in place measures for students that “we know is affordable and that we can build upon in the years ahead”.
He added that there is a need to “look at other measures” following the temporary reduction in student contribution fees.
“Your question may have been brief but the answer to it is longer, outlining the supports and the difference that we already make and we want to build upon,” said Donohoe.
However, Carthy said a line of minister have been “unable to answer a simple question”.
“They don’t want to hear what politicians are planning to do in the future, I’ll ask you one more time, are fees going to be €2,000 or will they be higher?
“Come down from your ivory tower and answer that question.”
Donohoe replied that “it is exactly because this issue of life-defining for so any that the government already has supports in place that you will never acknowledge”.
He added that the government is “interested in solutions rather than soundbites” and that the answer is “the same as the answer that has been given at any other points in recent years”.
“It’s an issue that has to be decided budget-by-budget and this government wants to help in a permanent way and we will outline our answer to that serious question, as we will with many others, when the budget is complete.”
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