College students accuse Government of breaking more promises over contribution fees
Over the last three budgets, a cut of €1,000 was applied to the contribution fee for third-level students, but it is expected that it will return to €3,000 this year.
Advertisement
This contradicts a plan set out in the recent Programme for Government, which saw the measure converted from temporary to permanent.
Incoming AMLÉ president, Brian O'Mahoney, said a promise has been broken.
"As always, we have students who are having to work full-time in order to get into class, but not being able to attend classes because they're working full-time," he said.
"[They are] choosing whether they go to class or whether to eat and are sleeping in cars.
"We wonder why students are leaving the country, but when students are so undervalued during their educational cycle, it's no wonder that we want to leave to have a brighter future."
On the contribution fee returning to €3,000, O'Mahoney said it "just shows more broken promises from the government".
"We have seen, in this country, according to an OECD report, out of 34 countries we were ranked the lowest in investment in education.
"The average was 5.7 per cent from GDP in Ireland we spend 2.8, so that's half what the average country in that report spends."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
39 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Labour is desperate, but targeting banks would be a disaster
Increasingly denied once-planned spending cuts, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is desperate for alternatives to fill the gap. Mercifully she has so far left the banks largely untouched. It's one of the few positives from a Government which otherwise seems minded to bear down on wealth as hard as it reasonably can. But for how much longer can this comparative immunity last? One year into government, and on immigration, welfare, the public finances and much else besides, meaningful policy reform has already ground to a halt, floored by mutiny on the backbenches. If the Government cannot even get something as innocuous as abolition of the winter fuel allowance through Parliament – what hope is there for anything else? Ministers can faff around with fiscal rules, Laffer curves, dynamic modelling and other such mechanisms designed to show the public finances in more sustainable form than they really are. But the bottom line is that the Government is spending a lot more than it raises in revenues. And on the present trajectory, the gap will only worsen. With planned spending cuts falling by the wayside, the Treasury is left, like Wilkins Micawber, hoping that something will turn up. Sadly, the much more likely prospect is that it won't. If Reeves were to be honest with the British public, she would grasp the nettle, claim that things have changed and abandon her manifesto commitment not to raise any of the main sources of taxation. Two pence in the pound on the basic, higher and additional rate of income tax would raise around £17.2bn, all other things being equal, and overnight solve all her immediate difficulties in making the numbers add up. But the politics of it all would, of course, be terrible. So instead, she is left flailing around in the foothills of the tax system looking for crumbs that don't breach the letter of Labour's election promises. Banks make an obvious target, so much so that it has surprised both the City – and many of those in her own ranks – that she hasn't already attempted to tap them. It's amazing how quickly perceptions change. Just three years ago, the European banking system, including that of the UK, was still thought of as 'uninvestable' following the traumas of the financial crisis. Few investors would go anywhere near a sector still synonymous with failure and catastrophic loss of shareholder value. But over the past two years, something miraculous has happened. After more than a decade of near-zero interest rate famine, interest rates have normalised again, and banks are once more relatively profitable beasts, with capital and liquidity buffers restored.
Telegraph
39 minutes ago
- Telegraph
If Reeves wants to risk our pensions, she should start with her own
When does the Pensions Regulator cross the line between acceptable cheerleading for government policy, and setting up a potential conflict with its fundamental duty to protect workplace pensions? Last week, one of the directors of the Pensions Regulator – who recently joined after 25 years as a fund manager – made a tub-thumping speech, which, I believe, crosses this line. He said: 'As regulator, we are embracing a new regulatory philosophy. One that sees growth and saver outcomes not as competing priorities, but as mutually reinforcing goals… We are actively encouraging schemes to adopt long-term investment strategies that support both member outcomes and national growth.' What does this mean in practice? The Government has set out its plans to consolidate assets in both the public sector local government pension scheme, and in private sector defined contribution workplace pensions. Local government pensions are, of course, defined benefit, guaranteed by taxpayers and don't depend on investment performance. But the value of defined contribution pensions, with no guarantees, depends entirely on investment performance. Rachel Reeves has left no doubt that she wants to get more of our pension savings into UK 'private assets' – venture capital and infrastructure – to supercharge the UK's lacklustre investment and to power economic growth. As part of all this, the Government has just published a lengthy Pension Schemes Bill with 12 different policies – a hotchpotch of the good, the bad and the indifferent. Last month, the Chancellor also strong-armed 17 of the largest pension providers into extending the existing voluntary code for defined contribution pensions – The Mansion House Accord – and commit to investing 10pc of pension savings in private assets by 2030, with half in the UK, amounting to a possible £50bn. Of all the pension providers, Scottish Widows (part of Lloyds Bank) chose not to sign. The Government has included 'reserve' powers in the Pensions Bill which could compel pension providers, and therefore pension savers, to put 10pc in private assets, whether they want to or not. This 'reserve' power looks like muscle flexing from a government weakened by about-turns on winter fuel payments and welfare benefits. Why choose to spend limited political capital threatening to introduce any form of pension compulsion? In any case, how would this fit in with the fiduciary duties of pension trustees to act in the 'best interests' of their members? Rather than 'soft' or 'hard' compulsion, pension providers should offer the choice of holding private assets, and then, along with the Government, put the positive case to pension savers. Investing in private assets is supposed to generate higher pensions, but detailed analysis by the Government Actuary's Department published last year (see page 26), shows this is just wishful thinking. The analysis models the likely returns if 15pc of defined contribution pension assets are switched from US and international equities (now 70pc of assets) to infrastructure and private equity. After 30 years of regular pension saving, the supercharged private portfolio is expected to outperform the current portfolio by 2pc. That's not an annual figure, it's 2pc in total after 30 years – less than a tenth of 1pc a year, basically a rounding error. The real difference with private assets is not performance, it is fees, which the Government Actuary assumes will be a whopping 1pc a year, plus a 10pc performance fee, versus just 0.25pc a year on other assets. Private assets are notoriously difficult to value, and are much harder to sell than public assets, a problem many private equity funds are now seeing. Returns in recent years have also been boosted by ultra-low interest rates – let's see how private equity copes with much higher borrowing costs. If the investment case really is so strong, then shouldn't the Government be prepared to guarantee pension savers a minimum return on any UK private assets they are obliged to hold? All MPs, including Ms Reeves, enjoy a very generous defined benefit pension, guaranteed by taxpayers, regardless of asset performance. Again, if the investment case is so strong, then shouldn't she and all the Cabinet set a good example by moving their own pension to a defined contribution plan, largely invested in private assets? Pension investment for people on modest earnings should be laser-focused on low costs, low risk and simplicity, which means passively managed public assets, not private assets with high costs, high risk and complexity. Sadly, the new Pensions Schemes Bill, and now apparently the Pensions Regulator, ignores this.
The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The truth must come out about BBC mistakes at Glastonbury. But here's why Tim Davie must stay
Uneasy lies the head that wears the BBC crown. Tim Davie, the beleaguered director general (DG), must be checking in the mirror to see if he is still wearing it and fearing the phone call which will summon him to the chair's office for an urgent word. Many BBC leaders have been made to fall on their sword, usually as the result of animosity from political leaders and a media furore. The stress is largely believed to have caused Ian Trethowan (1977-82) to have a heart attack. His successor, Alasdair Milne (1982-87), resigned rather than be sacked on the orders of Margaret Thatcher. Greg Dyke (2000-04), pursued by Labour's Alastair Campbell, had to walk the plank over the coverage of the Iraq war (his chair, Gavyn Davies, accompanied him). And in 2012 George Entwistle lasted only a few weeks in the building before he was ruthlessly grilled by Today's John Humphrys over Newsnight's coverage of a child abuse scandal, then left the building. And the past can come back to haunt you. Entwistle's successor, Tony Hall (2013-20), has been relentlessly pursued by Earl Spencer over the astonishing BBC interview with his sister Diana, Princess of Wales, which took place when Hall was director of news. Another instalment is promised in the autumn, when a book alleging a BBC cover-up will be published. Now Davie's tenure (2020-?) is in the balance because of the BBC coverage of an act of whom the DG, along with most of us, had probably never heard. Spewing disgusting, violent threats to Israel's defence force may be a good career move for the rap duo Bob Vylan, though the US has just banned them, but it could be fatal for Davie. There is no doubt that the BBC made serious errors over its coverage of Bob Vylan and that the DG, who attended Glastonbury and was consulted for his view of how to proceed immediately after the offensive chanting aired, was personally involved. He decided to let the livestream of events on that stage continue while ensuring that no recordings would be made available, though this allowed viewers to scroll back and see the offending material. Many questions remain. Did the BBC do due diligence on Bob Vylan – that is, check on their history of provocative political statements? Why did they not cut the live feed of the group's performance? Why was the coverage then left up for five hours on iPlayer? If the DG had not been at Worthy Farm, he would doubtless have ordered an urgent investigation which would probably have resulted in disciplinary action. But he can hardly discipline himself except, of course, by resigning. I do not think he should do so. For three reasons: first, he has, in many ways, been an exceptionally good director general who has had to manage a massive decline in the corporation's income (down around 30% in real terms since 2010) at a time of unprecedented competition, and begin moving the BBC into the digital world. When viewed as a businessperson, he is unquestionably outstanding and could command vastly higher financial rewards elsewhere. A very decent man, he has ensured that the BBC still produces outstanding programmes and is still greatly respected around the world at a time of significant financial uncertainty for the corporation. Second, the BBC is caught up in a passionate propaganda war over coverage of the Middle East and Gaza in particular. Trying to report fairly and authoritatively is greatly constrained by the Netanyahu government's refusal to allow independent journalists into the Gaza Strip. The corporation has been accused of being institutionally antisemitic and/or Islamophobic, and so-called media monitoring groups on both sides are mercilessly attacking it at every opportunity. It will – it has – made mistakes, but we still need its independent and often excellent journalism at a time of partisan reporting and social-media hate speech. The corporation has also had to cope with competitors such as the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News and Talk, whose commercial success in large part depends on diminishing the role of the BBC, if not extinguishing it completely. The third reason Davie should stay is that, right now, he is central to the BBC's survival. The futures of the licence fee, World Service funding and public service media in general are under threat. There is no plausible successor to take up the BBC's poisoned chalice. But Davie needs to make changes. Although he lives and breathes the BBC 24/7, he tries to do too much himself. He needs to appoint a deputy DG who is a very seasoned journalist and flak catcher, with a suitably suspicious mind. Davie has not been a journalist or a programme-maker and does not have that extra sixth sense, an antenna for trouble, which one of his predecessors, veteran journalist and editor Mark Thompson, had in abundance. The worst thing that could happen amid the fallout from the fallout of Glastonbury is that the BBC pulls back from reporting on the tragedies in the Middle East. I believe that the opposite should take place. Davie should commission programmes that explore the history of Zionism and of the Palestinians. I have not seen or heard any programming examining Hamas in detail, or exploring the difference between being anti-Israel and antisemitic – a difference deliberately blurred by the supporters of this Israeli government. It is ironic that some of the best reporting on the conflict comes from Israeli journalists who work inside Israel, many for the newspaper Haaretz. Bloody but unbowed, the BBC should emulate them, with Tim Davie still at its head. Roger Bolton is a former BBC editor and presenter. He now presents a podcast, Roger Bolton's Beeb Watch
