The Irish government has announced a permanent €500 (£435) cut to yearly student fees, bringing them down from €3,000 to €2,500 – but the new total is likely to constitute an increase for many students, as a €1,000-per-year fee relief scheme ends.

Under Ireland’s free fees initiative, most undergraduate students residing in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the UK do not have to pay tuition fees, instead paying a yearly “student contribution” to their university.

The 2026 budget announced on 7 October includes the reduction of the maximum student contribution from €3,000 to €2,500 per year. However, since the 2022-23 academic year, the government has contributed €1,000 per year to each student’s fees as part of a cost-of-living crisis initiative, in effect reducing the yearly total to €2,000.

Earlier this year, further and higher education minister James Lawless suggested that the fee relief initiative would be discontinued, a move described by Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn (AMLÉ), the national representative body for Irish students, as a “calculated betrayal”.

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Student leaders met with Lawless after the Irish Examiner reported on the  last month, . “Every Union emphasised the importance of reducing the current €3,000 student contribution charge,” said president Bryan O’Mahony.

Describing the €500 cut as a “sleight of hand, touting a ‘reduction’ which will feel to students like a sizeable increase”, O’Mahony called the move “utterly unacceptable to our members”, adding, “We are all urging this government to do the right thing and act with integrity.”

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The 2026 budget also sees the income threshold for student grant eligibility increase by €5,000. To be eligible for financial support through the Student Grant Scheme – funding commonly known as the SUSI grant, after awarding body Student Universal Support Ireland – households with fewer than four dependent children must now have an income of €120,000 or less, a limit that previously stood at €115,000.

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com