Over the last number of weeks, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President, Kieran McNulty, has met with numerous members of the Oireachtas Education and Skills Committee, lobbying for increased public investment in higher education. In November, the heads of Irish universities will meet with the committee to discuss the options laid out in the report of the government’s higher education funding working group.
In mid-September, McNulty met with Fianna Fáil’s Education Spokesperson, Thomas Byrne, who reiterated the party’s opposition to an increase in the student contribution fee to fund higher education.
The party, however, has been less clear on their position on loans. While publicly expressing concerns over loan schemes, the party has not yet ruled them out. At a seminar on higher education funding in Trinity last week, which was attended by Prof Bruce Chapman of the Australian National University, who helped introduce an income-contingent loan scheme to the country, Byrne expressed his party’s “cautious” attitude to loan schemes.
Noting that it is “going to take some time for the political process to work out what the best system is” for funding higher education, Byrne emphasised that his own party is still in the process of debating the merits of an income-contingent loan scheme system.
Speaking to The University Times after the meeting with McNulty in September, Byrne confirmed that the party supported an increase in investment in higher education: “We recognise there is a massive funding crisis in the third-level sector in general, so we get that point. And that is the main point of the Cassells report, regardless of the method of funding.”
Fianna Fáil has been increasingly outspoken in recent months on higher education. Ahead of the general election, Martin wrote in the University Times: “I believe there is absolutely no justification for increasing student fees anytime in the future and Fianna Fáil are committed to freezing fees at current levels for at least the next five years.” In August, the party called on the government to reverse the “appallingly regressive” removal of postgraduate maintenance grants by the previous Fine Gael-Labour coalition in 2012. At the end of August, Michael Martin called for €100 million of funding for higher education to be allocated in the Budget, which was announced last week.
As the Oireachtas Education and Skills Committee, of which Byrne is a member, begins to sit down to discuss the recommendations of the report by the government’s higher education funding working group, there are reports that Fianna Fáil is opposed to loan schemes.
This is the indication McNulty got from Byrne. In a post on the TCDSU Facebook page following the meeting with Byrne, the union said: “Great to see a willingness to stopping fee increases, opposition to a loan system and a review of SUSI!”.
Speaking to The University Times, McNulty said that Byrne outlined his opposition to loan schemes: “I don’t think he is going to pursue loans”.
When put to him that TCDSU had claimed he opposed loan schemes, however, Byrne was careful not to couch his party’s attitude to loan schemes in terms of opposition: “We’re extremely wary of the loan schemes.” Byrne did acknowledge that “there’s a lot of opposition within Fianna Fáil front bench to the concept of loans” but said that the party would examine the recommendations of the Cassells report in detail.
One of the big questions hanging over the committee’s decision is whether they will be willing to compromise on the three options put forward by the working group’s report, commonly called the Cassells report after its chair, Peter Cassells.
In an interview with The University Times in September, Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton, said a compromise on the three options is possible, stating that in the current political situation, where Fine Gael is leading a minority government, “some form of compromise is always going to have to be there”.
Byrne would not be drawn on any suggestion of compromise, however: “The committee hasn’t even nodded at each other … there’s not even been a minute’s discussion about it”.
He said his party recognised “the urgency” of a decision on funding, and “that’s why we’re trying to get Cassells actioned in terms of the identified need for funding in that report”.
This is a position recognised by many Irish parties. In their alternative budget proposal released last week, the Social Democrats reaffirmed their commitment for a 10 per cent increase in the block grant provided to higher-education institutes. In their proposal, the party states that the grant increase, which would come to €96 million in 2017, would help Irish institutions “better compete with third-level institutions around the globe”.
A significant proportion of the Education and Skills Committee have in the past made clear their opposition to the introduction of an income-contingent loan scheme. Sinn Féin, the Labour Party and the Green Party, who all have representatives on the committee, all support alternative funding models to loan schemes.
Speaking at the Trinity seminar last Wednesday, Ivana Bacik, Labour Senator, said her party supported option one of the Cassells report – the abolition of the student contribution and the creation of a predominantly state-funded system. She warned, however, that “we have to be conscious of the political decisions around option one”.
Byrne, however, disagreed that such common ground might mean a solution on funding might be made quickly. “We’ll deliberate carefully on the report.”
McNulty acknowledged that the party representatives he had met all had recognised the urgency of the funding question. However, he also stated: “The indication I’ve got is that the Cassells report is not held to a hugely high esteem.”
This will come as a concern to those who want a decision made based on the three options laid out by the Cassells report. At a press conference on September 28th, the Coalition for Publicly Funded Higher Education, made up of unions including the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI), the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), called for a decision to be made on the funding of higher education.
Responding to a question from The University Times, General Secretary of IFUT, Mike Jennings, heavily criticised the lack of decision-making from Bruton, accusing him of “monumental indecisiveness”.
In response to the same question, Aidan Kenny, an Assistant General Secretary in TUI, said: “A compromise is fine, but I think we’ve gone beyond that”.
