Quinn rebukes FG minister over student grants claim

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn issued a public slap-down to Fine Gael as tensions over means testing capital assets for student grants escalated.

The Labour TD rounded on the newly appointed junior agriculture minister Tom Hayes for saying the controversial policy had been “dropped”.

In a stinging rebuke to his Fine Gael colleague, Mr Quinn said while he had been in Cabinet for two-and-a-half years, Mr Hayes had only been in office “half a day” and no decision on grants had been made.

The row erupted after Mr Hayes announced that plans to include capital assets in means tests for student grants have been abandoned. Branding the system “very unfair”, the new minister added: “That idea has been dropped by Minister Quinn and it is only fair that it be dropped.”

Clearly angered by the remarks, Mr Quinn insisted that he hoped a means test formula taking into account capital assets would be brought in by the beginning of the 2014 autumn term.

Admitting that some Fine Gael TDs wanted the idea “dead”, Mr Quinn added: “The memo has not yet been brought to Cabinet. It was always intended to have the introduction of a dimension of capital assets test in addition to income.”

Mr Quinn claimed that the means testing had never been intended to come in before next year, in remarks that directly contradict the Budget 2012 commitment for them to start in autumn 2013.

The spat came as the Government announced what it called a “modest” extra €150m in capital spending to be equally divided between school building, road repair, and making 25,000 council properties more energy efficient.

Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin said the money would come form the sale of state assets this year and represented the first boost to the capital budget since before the financial crisis hit in 2008.

The spending is expected to support about 3,000 jobs, said Mr Howlin.