I'm a bit concerned by some of the narrative I've seen around third-level fees in recent weeks. Criticising them seems to have, in some quarters, moved away from their role as a barrier to access and instead focused on a more facile consideration of 'value for money'.

I'm completely opposed to charging students €3,000 for third-level education – just as I was opposed to it this time last year. This idea that the fee has become more 'unjust' because of on-campus restrictions is ludicrous and smacks of a marketised view of education.

Ireland's third-level fees are not a problem because they won't buy your kids a full 'college experience' this year. They're a problem because they deny certain individuals and families in our society their rightful access to a social good. That's no different to September 2019.

Higher and further education in Ireland has been immersed in a funding crisis for well over a decade now. It's about to get a lot worse. Many casual teaching positions – the kind that have kept me going as a new academic these last couple of years – simply won't exist this year.

This is important to bear in mind, because now is not the time to get distracted by those who could already afford the fees taking bourgeois offence at a perceived decline in their 'value for money'. Buying into a commodified view of education is inevitably self-defeating.

The issue is not that €3,000 was a fair sum to pay for on-campus teaching but a travesty for blended or remote learning. The issue is that €3,000 was always a barrier to education that some people simply couldn't overcome.

This Government would be more than happy to shirk its responsibility to increase exchequer funding for the higher and further education sectors to adequate levels. Abandoning the 'education is a social good' narrative makes that much easier. Don't let them off the hook.

(This, I hasten to add, is separate to the matter of rents and accommodation fees. It is of course utterly unjust to charge full-time rates for accommodation that cannot and will not be occupied on a full-time basis.)