Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has announced a permanent reduction to the third level student contribution fee of €150.
Speaking in the Dáil as he delivered his Budget 2027 speech, Mr Chambers said this will ease cost-of-living pressures on families and ensure widen participation in higher education.
The Minister also said he will introduce new grants for families with more than one child attending higher education and an increase of the SUSI maintenance grant rates by 4.5% from January.
Overall, these measures will benefit over 150,000 students and their families, he said.
Mr Chambers said Ireland is well placed to “take advantage of the opportunities that AI offers, but only if we equip our people with the skills of the future”, as he announced a €5.3bn allocation to the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science next year.
He told the Dáil that this will fund a new three-year National Training Fund skills package, aimed at strengthening skills resilience across the economy, “including the skills we need to adapt to a future where AI is central to work”.
Additional funding will also be provided to expand apprenticeship delivery, moving closer towards the Government’s 12,500 annual registrations by 2030.
Overall the Minister said he was allocating €14.4bn to the Department of Education and Youth for next year, which will provide an increase of €17m to the capitation funding paid to schools to support their running costs.
This will mean an increase of €68 to €342 per pupil at primary level, which is a 25% hike, and an increase of €42 to €446 at post primary level, which is an increase of 10%.
Meanwhile, the minister said he would allocate a €56m increase in the allocation to support children and young people with special education needs in mainstream, special classes and special schools.
This will fund 2,339 additional special needs assistants in 2027, bringing the total number of SNAs to 28,000, and an additional 1,353 teachers, increasing the total numbers of teachers in the area of special education to 24,000.
