Laois Government TD Willie Aird rebels over €1,000 student fee hike

Laois TD Willie Aird demanded that his government honour its commitment to support working families and not raise student fees by €1,000. 

The Fine Gael TD was reacting to comments from Fianna Fail Minister for Higher Education James Lawless, who revealed a planned €1,000 hike in student fees. 

Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Deputy Aird asked,  “will the Minister today commit to honouring the programme for Government promise to continue to reduce the student contribution fee during the lifetime of this Government?”

According to Dep Aird, "this Government must stick to our commitment to support working families, deliver on the student contribution fee promise and build on the progress already made.”  

“Does the Minister realise what has happened with regard to this €1,000? It is putting 100 hours extra work on all young students who are working hard during the summer in fast food takeaways and shops, milking cows or driving tractors. That is what this €1,000 is doing. Not every student, indeed not many at all, has parents with deep pockets who can come up with this €1,000. There are young kids in every one of our communities who now have to work an extra 100 hours during the summer in order to pay the extra €1,000,” said Dep Aird. 

He said the bottom line is that families have to have that money when they go to college in September. "I am pleading with the Minister not to go ahead with this,” said Dep Aird. 

In response to the comments, Fianna Fail Deputy Jack Chambers said: “What has been stated up to this point is that the one-off temporary measures taken in the past 12 months are not continuing in the context of budget 2026. However, there will be a real focus on affordability of public services in education, childcare and healthcare. That is something many Government Ministers want to prioritise.”

“In the aftermath of the summer economic statement, we absolutely acknowledge the need to support students and those in an education setting, whether at primary or third level. The Minister, Deputy Lawless, will engage in that as part of the budget process. We have to respect the budget process in advance of it actually occurring. We are due to commence that over the coming weeks. We will be able to set out on budget day what decisions we will take for budget 2026,” he stated.  

Independent Laois TD Brian Stanley described it as “a bad couple of weeks” for students. 

“I listened carefully to the Minister's earlier answers. He framed this in the context of a once-off measure, as did the Minister, Deputy Lawless. However, the programme for Government states that the Government will continue to reduce student contribution fees over the lifetime of the Government, to ease the financial burden on students and families, at the start of each academic year - not some academic years,” said Dep Stanley. 

He said “some of the Government Deputies are jumping up and down about this as well. That is no harm but we need some real discussion about this because the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, is saying students will be deferring degrees as a result of this or even studying abroad. We are back to the €3,000 fees.”