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2004

SIPTU opposes reintroduction of third level fees

Date Released: 17 Sep 2004

SIPTU's General President Jack O'Connor, said the reintroduction of third level fees would serve only to exacerbate inequity and diminish accessibility to education.

"Lower to middle income families would be most severely affected by any such development.

"The problem would be made worse by our present skewed grant system which is geared towards the better off - by reason of its failure to include wealth, property and capital in calculating income. Such a failure has resulted in very obviously wealthy people being grant-aided, while PAYE workers - on significantly lower incomes - fail to qualify.

"There is undoubtedly an issue to be addressed around the ability of some very wealthy people to avail of State education at the expense of the tax payer. But the proper way to address this is through progressive taxation of wealth and capital, not penalizing the children of lower to middle income PAYE workers.

"The resurgence of the campaign to re-introduce third level fees must not be allowed to deflect attention from the other stark conclusions of the report; that Ireland ranks 14 out of 26 OECD States when it comes to spending on third level students; that overall investment in education lags behind the OECD average and that investment in R&D as a percentage of our wealth is below both the EU and OECD averages.

"These findings highlight the consequences of inadequate social investment - despite the phenomenal expansion of our economy over the past decade.

"Education must remain a social good rather than a commodity to be traded in the market place," he concluded.

Mr. O'Connor was commenting on the OECD report on Higher Education in Ireland published yesterday.





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