Invest in Third-Level Education Now!

We will be presenting the minister for public expenditure and all party spokespeople on public expenditure with this letter and with every name signed on this 

Dear Minister, 

On Thursday, October 17th thousands of students from colleges across the country are walking out of their lectures to protest the systemic underfunding and lack of support for students in higher education. For far too long young people on this island have been failed by this Government whether it is in relation to the rising cost of living, no hope of home ownership or being unable to make a future for themselves in Ireland. This Government had a chance to make things better with four budgets, but with every one you might as well have handed young people a plane ticket and said we don’t care about you. 

Minister, we as students are demanding that you provide funding for the higher education sector. The systemic failure of the sector is becoming increasingly more obvious with a lack of on campus purpose-built student accommodation and Technological Universities being unable to secure funding to build at all. More and more students are turning to the private sector to find somewhere to live. Seven years ago, the deficit of beds in student accommodation was 24,000 beds and now it is over 30,000. Students should not have to worry about accommodation to such an extent.  

Minister for Further and Higher Education Patrick O’Donovan said:Even if I had all the money I could ask for, the building of accommodation would still take five years.” Well Minister if we do not start building today than when will we build? When our children are students? When our children’s children are students?  

Data from 2021 shows that while on average OECD countries spend the equivalent of 5.7% of GDP on education from early childhood to third level, Ireland spends just 2.8%. If we are serious around the future for young people on this island and to make Ireland the “best country in Europe to be a child” then we need to start investing in our futures immediately 

Minister, we are asking for you to properly fund HEIs to give young people a genuine chance at looking forward to the future, to stop being treated as cash cows and make this an Ireland we are proud to call home and not just somewhere to start before we have to leave.