Third Level Costs
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-12
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

We are doing that. This week or next week, we will pass the Finance Bill through the Houses to give effect to those measures we have already decided, as a Government, to take. We are doing exactly as the Deputy suggests. We are providing further subsidies on the cost of travel to students in two ways, namely, through direct intervention at the petrol pumps for those students who travel by car and motorised transport and by additions to the maintenance grants, which are already in the system and being paid out to students across the country. Students are receiving those benefits from the new grant amounts that I increased for exactly that reason.
I am always having ongoing conversations with students. I will be publishing shortly the outcome from the cost of college event I hosted this year. That will be in the form of a paper and it will be available for reference to the Deputy, as her party's spokesperson for this area, and to all Members of the House. It will outline all the different options students suggested, with a costing against each one. For the first time this year, the paper will contain an impact analysis detailing what each measure would mean in terms of outcomes, policy goals, widening access and the material difference it would make to allow students to make the leap into education and navigate through it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-12