Sinn Féin councillor Thérèse Ruane has described the actions of Fine Gael spokesperson Brian Hayes and his party colleagues as “utterly hypocritical” with regards to the reintroduction of third level fees.
Cllr Ruane said: “On one hand Deputy Hayes is telling third level students that he is totally against the reintroduction of fees and on their side. But on the other hand he and his party are proposing to introduce a different version of tuition fees under the guise of a graduate tax. This is hypocritical and shows that ideologically they are driven to fees.”
This graduate tax or as it is called in Australia ‘the Higher Education Contribution Scheme’, is a scheme where students have their fees paid for up front by the Government and then pay back the amount owed through extra taxation on graduation.
“The Australian system is broken and flawed and it has grown so complex that it needs almost AUS $5 billion to overhaul and comes as a response to a 272 page review of the system. This system, which was originally created to increase access to third level education, is in fact having the opposite affect. Students finish university steeped in debt and many students will never earn enough to repay their loan,” explained Cllr Ruane.
“Anyway, if a graduate tax system is implemented it would take at least 10 years before any cost would be recouped by the state, so the argument that this system would be able to fund the sector is completely flawed,” she added.
“Sinn Féin is very clear on its position. We will not accept fees through the back door by increasing the registration fee, we will not accept fees through the front door by full-on tuition fees, and we will not accept fees through the side door by way of this fundamentally flawed graduate tax. Higher education benefits everyone and equality of access must be made a priority. It should be paid for through a fair and progressive taxation system.”
