Third Level Fees
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

I am not sure where the mention of abolition came from. It certainly was not in my party's manifesto. I never promised it to anybody, not once in this brief, and not once in the campaign did I or my party promise this. I do not know what other people might have done. It is for them to speak about that. I am not aware of any such promise in any manifesto. What my party promised to do was to address the cost of education and this is what we are doing aggressively. We are going full steam ahead on it. This is why I have introduced a range of measures. The €500 permanent cut is the first of its kind. There is the fee subvention for households with an income up to €120,000. The student assistance fund is being increased. All of the basic layers of maintenance grants are being increased. It is worth recapping and restating that 80% of households, if we look at the ESRI income distribution chart, will now benefit from SUSI grants. The question is whether we will continue, and we will, with flat reductions, but the 20% of top earners are the ones who will benefit most from ongoing fee reductions. I will do this but I will also do things that support those in the 80% and the 20% at the bottom because it is socially just to do so.
Deputy Ward raised the issue of fees. His party in the North recently had an advertisement about student fees being £4,800. This is two and half times more.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29