Third-level fees causing tension between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael

Good morning.

The Taoiseach is swanking around the land of the rising sun. There’s a heatwave in Europe. And at home there’s a bit of a tension convention between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over third level fees.

The Fianna Fáil Minister for Higher Education James Lawless is in Fine Gael’s bad books after suggesting that third level fees may rise by as much as €1,000 a year as the cost-of-living supports in recent budgets come to an end.

Lawless has actually been talking about this for months – we reported on it back at the start of April – but as the budget maneuvering enters a more active phase, he returned to the subject in recent days. Third level fees of €3,000 a year have been reduced by €1000 by cost of living supports in recent years. Get rid of those supports – as the Government is pledged to do – and fees must go up, Lawless reasons.

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But Fine Gael, ever attuned to many hardships faced by middle Ireland, is wondering out loud how you can fulfil the Programme for Government pledge to cut the cost of third level education by, er, increasing the cost of third level education.

The situation was sufficiently grave to warrant a voice note from Tánaiste Simon Harris to Fine Gael TDs last night. “The budget will be agreed by Government with key input from the party leaders. But it does need to help families with the cost of putting a young person through college,” Harris told his party. Expect this to be put to him when he takes leaders questions today.

Budget matters are also up for discussion when the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) visits the Budget Oversight Committee today, where Ifac chairman Seamus Coffey will tell the TDs and senators that the Government is on course for €2 billion of unbudgeted overspends this year – and that’s just in current spending, not to mind ballooning capital projects.

The finding is among a number of criticisms and warnings that Ifac is likely to make. The Government is currently preparing its summer economic statement, a key budgetary document that will indicate the parameters for spending increases in the October budget.

The council will urge the Government not to continue with the pro-cyclical budgetary policies of recent years, which saw billions of euros in giveaways to voters announced on budget day, as well as longer term spending increases.

“Given the economy is in a strong position, it does not require support from budgetary policy. Standard economics suggests the government should support the economy when it is weak, but show restraint when the economy is strong,” Coffey is expected to tell the committee.

Budgetary restraint, of course, in a time of plenty for the Exchequer, is a hard political sell.

The Cabinet meets this morning, sans Taoiseach, and the agenda features a number of housing related memos. As Harry McGee reports, the Government intends to establish a league table of how local authorities are performing when it comes to building social housing, which will be useful for blaming someone else.

Dublin has a new Lord Mayor. He is Ray McAdam, a Fine Gael councillor – the third FGer in a row to hold the position – and chum of the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe.

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A telecoms company with suspected ties to a key arm of the Iranian regime asked Irish diplomats for help setting up business deals in the Republic with Eir, Vodafone and Three, Jack Power reports.

Fintan O’Toole finds that he has more wives than Henry VIII – thanks to AI.

Playbook

As mentioned above, Taoiseach Micheál Martin is in Japan for an official visit, with the agenda mostly dominated by trade and investment. China Correspondent Denis Staunton is covering the trip and has a preview here.

Back at home, the Cabinet meets at Government Buildings this morning under the chairmanship of Simon Harris.

Dáil business starts at 2pm with Leaders’ Questions – Harris in the hot seat again – followed by the usual weekly row over the order of business. There’s housing questions later, and a private members motion from Sinn Féin on the GPO and Moore St – which the party wants to see developed as a 1916 quarter. How long has this been going on now?

Two Government Bills are due to conclude in the Seanad – the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill and the Finance (Local Property Tax and Other Provisions) bill.

At the committees, there’s a few things to watch. The foreign affairs committee will begin pre-legislative scrutiny of the Occupied Territories Bill when senior officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs come in.

The Committee on Defence and National Security is also doing pre-legislative scrutiny on the bill to abolish the triple lock, while the Budget Oversight Committee – as mentioned above – have the Fiscal Council in. Senior wallahs from the Department of Arts and Media are in to talk about the Arts Council and the controversy over its abandoned IT project. Full list of committee and details of the Dail and Seanad sittings are here.