Call to End Free Education for Pupils from the Republic
20 November 2012
Below is the text of Jim Allister’s speech during yesterday’s debate on cross-border education:
“Is it a sign of the total disconnect of this House from reality that only one other Member in this debate about cross-border education even mentioned the matter of cost? Every day that we meet here, we discuss issues around austerity. We had a debate today about the failings in child poverty.
“We are constantly told about the cost pressures. We hear about them in the welfare debate and in everything else. Yet, here we have a proposition that inescapably costs the Northern Ireland taxpayer substantial amounts of money. We already know that 400 children from the Irish Republic are educated for free in the schools of Northern Ireland and that fewer than 200 children from Northern Ireland are educated in the schools of the Irish Republic. Straight away, one can see that there is a financial deficit. When the Finance Minister was asked about that deficit, he said that it was more than £1 million. When the Education Minister is asked about it, he has no interest in it whatsoever.
“It does not end there. We now know from questions that I have asked that there are over 4,000 students from the Irish Republic in our regional colleges getting education for free at a cost of over £8 million per annum. There are over 4,000 students from the Irish Republic in our universities getting education that we subsidise at a cost of over £4 million per annum. In education alone, the Northern Ireland taxpayer puts his hand in his pocket to educate students and pupils from the Irish Republic to the tune of £13·5 million a year. I have no problem with students from the Irish Republic coming to study in Northern Ireland, but they need to bring their chequebook with them. This is not a free handout, but that is what it has been.
“It is in that sense and on that path that the Minister wants to take us further. With no regard to the cost, he wants to have more students from the Irish Republic whom we educate at our expense in our schools, and they walk in free. More than that, one of his colleagues said that we needed to provide them with free transport. Is there no point at which this House connects with reality and begins to face up to what we are talking about? If there is going to be any talk about cross-border education, it is time that it is costed and paid for. Those who benefit from it or their Government should pay us for it. We cannot go on like this.
“Of course, because the Minister sees no border and wants no border, he is happy to peddle his all-Ireland agenda, of which this, undoubtedly, is a part. He peddles it in terms of parental choice. That from the Minister who, with the greatest possible totalitarian vigour, stamps on parental choice in Northern Ireland when it comes to parents who want their kids to go to a grammar school or to go through a selective process. He is the man who is most vigorous in denouncing and denying parental choice. When it comes to this matter, it is all dressed up in giving the parents of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland the choice of where they educate their children and we will pay for it. I think not.
“It is not just a matter of paying for it in the sense of paying for the teachers and the cost of education. There is also the question of capital costs. If you have an influx of pupils and you need a school extension in Northern Ireland, who will pay for it? The Northern Ireland exchequer will pay for it. That is why I come back to the point that it really is time that we rooted this debate in some reality, and that reality is the financial reality. The fact that so many just want to close their eyes to that is indicative of the motives that they really have.”
