I do not disagree with anything the Deputy said. The profile of a learner or student is going to change in Ireland. Not every student will be 18 straight out of school and packing the bags to go to college for four years. More and more we are going to see people in their 40s, 50s and 60s with full-time jobs, mortgages and some dependants, needing to access to education. There is a challenge for us on two fronts. One is to make the current student support scheme more flexible. That is why I have alluded to the issue…

I thank the Deputy for the question and the important issue he is raising. It is important to say at the outset that the SUSI scheme does take account of the circumstances of people in receipt of the working family payment. First, as the Deputy knows, the working family payment is treated as an income disregard. This means that it is not included in the reckonable income for the student grant means test. Furthermore, unlike other social protection payments which are paid to individuals, the working family payment i…

I very much take the seriousness of the point the Deputy is making. Regardless of whether a large or small number are affected, the point is important and valid. I approached the answer to the question in that spirit. We are slightly at risk of talking at cross purposes. Regarding the relevance of SUSI, I want to be clear again that the working family payment is an income disregard so there is no student who is not receiving the grant today because payment tipped him or her over an income level. The payment is disr…

I will indeed engage with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, on this issue. I am pleased to say that, when it comes to the SUSI review, we specifically included the Department of Social Protection in the steering group. What we all want is to ensure no poverty traps exist regarding any State support. I am cognisant that the working family payment is not a barrier to any family receiving the SUSI grant, but I am also cognisant of the broader point Deputy Daly is making. I will certainly ensure the…

I thank the Deputy for the important question on SUSI grant schemes and their real value. I suggest that I provide him with some of the information in tabular form to assist with the discussion this evening. As part of budget 2022, a budget of the three-party Government, we announced the first major changes to the student grant scheme rates and eligibility. These include an increase to the standard and special rates of maintenance, which have not increased in over a decade. These changes will take effect in the 202…

I am sorry. They were reduced and were then static.

They were, indeed. Yes.

We are not even there yet.

I do not need a history lesson, and neither does the Deputy, in respect of some of the very difficult economic decisions this country made after the troika period and, indeed, during that period, when many difficult public expenditure decisions had to be made. We are not going to debate on the floor of the Dáil why they were made, I am quite sure. When our two parties came together along with the Green Party in this Government, we made a commitment, in the programme for Government, to improve student grants. Consid…

Which the Deputy voted for.

It is your package.

The Minister of State in my Department, Deputy Niall Collins, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, and I — and, as I believed, every member of the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green parliamentary parties — are determined to increase the student supports. I have here some of the decisions the Deputy made on student supports during his time in government in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

We are all aware of the economic crisis, Deputy

My apologies. I am very much aware of the situation we saw during Deputy Ó Cuív's time in the last Fianna Fáil Government, and indeed during the time of the Fine Gael-Labour Government, when very difficult decisions on registration fees and student grants had to be made. I will provide to the Deputy, as an appendix to this answer, information in tabular form for each of those years on postgraduate grants, maintenance grants and registration fees. That is all here for the Deputy to see, from 2008 to 2021.

It will be published on the record of the House.

The Deputy does not need to do that. The replies are published. That is how parliamentary questions are published. The Deputy has been in the House long enough to know that.

That is exactly what we will do. In budget 2022 we have brought about a significant increase as a statement of intent. Nobody is suggesting it is the final destination, but we will also settle the question of a sustainable funding model for higher education.

The Deputy did not do much for them himself.

I thank Deputy Durkan for this important question. I thank him also for the time we spent yesterday in Celbridge and Maynooth viewing further education and higher education facilities. I very much enjoyed it, though he still has not given us the winning lotto numbers. Ireland has developed a national skills system across further and higher education and apprenticeships, lifelong learning and human capital development under the framework of the national skills strategy and underpinned by strong partnership with key …

This whole discussion on skills is one of the most important ones we can have in these Houses because so much else of what we talk about here is dependent on getting this right. We talk a lot about housing. The Deputy will have heard me talk about this yesterday in Kildare. We need about 27,000 more people to work in the construction sector. The Deputy and I are not going to build the houses. That is why we are putting a concerted focus on apprenticeships. At the moment we take on about 6,000 construction apprentic…