Third Level Fees
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02
============================================================

Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

I know people were happy with the reduction. It is swings and roundabouts as to whether the total level went up or down, but it is what it is. No one in this House can deny the challenges students face. Of course, there are students who do not pay because of SUSI. I appreciate that the threshold for SUSI increased, but there are students stuck in the middle. This is the challenge. We have heard of students sleeping in cars or dropping out because they cannot afford it. Some students are working almost full-time jobs to get through their college course. This is not what we want. As I have said before in this House, the love of learning is why we want students to go to third level, whatever course they decide to do.
Students who have just finished the leaving certificate or the leaving certificate applied have been under huge pressure. They need time to figure out who they are and what they want to do and discover what the future might hold for them. However, if they are under massive pressure during this time, they will not be able to do that. That will cause students to leave third level education, which will affect their self-esteem and all the different parts of their life.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:14+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-02