Students new cash cow for government – Crowe<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s education spokesperson, Se\u00e1n Crowe<\/span> TD, says the government\u00a0is determined to turn students and parents into a handy\u00a0cash cow,\u00a0after the Taoiseach\u2019s confirmation that third-level fees will likely increase incrementally over the next couple of years.<\/p>\n The Dublin South West TD was responding to comments made by Enda Kenny in support of education minister, Ruair\u00ed Quinn who, this week, told an audience of students in the University of Limerick that the registration fee paid by third-level\u00a0students at the start of each year would be up by \u20ac250 next year and would likely keep increasing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe news that fees are to increase to \u20ac3,000 shows how cynical Ruairi Quinn was when he signed a USI pledge 12 months ago pledging not to increase student contribution fees.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Taoiseach justifies this hike by claiming a strong and vibrant third-level system needs to be paid for, but the reality is that any additional money made by cutting grants is unlikely to go into improving the standards of our universities and colleges.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is yet another tax on families who are already struggling to make ends meet and the government seems determined to ensure further education is the sole preserve of those who can afford high fees.<\/p>\n “It is ironic, that in the run-up to last year\u2019s the election, we were told this was a \u2018red line issue\u2019 for the Labour Party. Twelve months later, Minister Quinn, far from reversing the \u20ac500 increase in the student contribution announced a further \u20ac250 increase in December\u2019s budget, with more to follow.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the least well off who are suffering the most as a result of this Government\u2019s failed austerity measures.<\/p>\n This government seem determined to turn\u00a0students and their parents into a handy cash cow that can be tapped into when they feel like it,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Students new cash cow for government – Crowe \u00a0 Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s education spokesperson, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, says the government\u00a0is determined to turn students and parents into a handy\u00a0cash cow,\u00a0after the Taoiseach\u2019s confirmation that third-level fees will likely increase incrementally over the next couple of years. The Dublin South West TD was responding to comments made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}