I have been asking the Minister to publish the economic evaluation of Cassells report since it came back from the EU at the beginning of last summer. He has repeatedly stated he will be bringing proposals to Cabinet for a sustainable funding model for higher education and he will then publish the report. When will he bring these proposals to Cabinet? Why can he not publish a draft copy of the report in advance?

I will absolutely work in every way I can to ensure that Ukrainians who are coming here and who are very welcome here will have access to further and higher education. By delaying the publication of the report the Minister is impeding the work of the education committee. The committee has dedicated weeks of hearings on the future of funding of higher education. These hearings were scheduled on the assumption the information would not be withheld and that it would be available. The report is an economic valuation pa…

I understand the implementation is absolutely important and we have to get this right. It is fundamental to the future of education. Today we had trade unions and the Union of Students of Ireland, USI, before the committee. They were unable to engage with the economic report and how we might address the underfunding in education. Instead we discussed the effects of underfunding. ICTU spoke of the creeping privatisation of the sector over the past ten years, when the Minister has been in government. The TUI highligh…

The draft SUSI review has been on the Minister's desk since December. When will the report be published? When will he bring proposals to Cabinet? In particular, are the reforms specified in the review going to be introduced in September or will we have to wait until 2023-24? That is what I am really concerned about.

We welcome those changes but we really need to see them now. As the Minister will know, we are in extraordinary times with regard to the cost of living. The cost of living is having a severe impact on students and their families. That is why I am concerned that one thing is being delayed by the other. We need to bring in measures with regard to SUSI eligibility before the beginning of the next year. I am concerned about the students who are here right now, particularly students who have to travel because they eithe…

I appreciate that but we really need to make sure that SUSI is fit for purpose. I think we agree on that. At the moment, too few people have access to it. I welcome the announced increases to the income thresholds but we are obviously still waiting for them to come into effect. We could have worked on the maintenance grant. We did not have to wait until September to do that. We need to increase the numbers getting access to the scheme rather than simply being a standstill measure to keep up with the limited wage gr…

We have an entrenched housing crisis and students and families have felt this extremely severely. I ask the Minister to outline his plans to increase the supply of affordable on-campus accommodation.

I welcome the Minister's response, in particular the part about working with the local authorities to identify for the higher education institutions possible locations for student accommodation and buildings that can be converted. As late as last week I discussed that with Atlantic Technological University. By the way, I congratulate Dr. Orla Flynn. I think she will do an excellent job there, and I know the Minister and I will work with her to ensure that Atlantic Technological University is successful. That is one…

The reliance on private sector purpose-built student accommodation has failed to deliver any affordable student accommodation. Looking at Mayo, for instance, the problem there is that we are concerned that the lack of accommodation will constrain the possibilities and the opportunities for Atlantic Technological University. There were only 24 properties to rent last week in Mayo, and we find that students are competing with families, which should not be the case. We should have purpose-built on-campus accommodation…

Will the Minister provide an update for the waiting list for the craft apprenticeships and the progress in decentralising the craft apprenticeship model? When I raised this with the Minister last month, there had been a 17% increase in the number of apprentices waiting to access off-the-job training over the preceding two months, with figures back up to just under 10,000. What progress has been made on reducing the backlog? The Minister knows I will ask him this every Question Time.

I thank the Minister. Last year saw only 1,798 apprentices become fully qualified tradespeople. This is close to 600 fewer than the number in 2020. It represents the lowest number of newly qualified tradespeople since 2017. The Minister know this is not as a result of the lack of interest of young people in taking up apprenticeships or a lack of demand from the construction sector. It is being caused by a lack of capacity in the off-site classroom training that each apprentice needs to progress. I welcome the capit…

This is about someone taking up an apprenticeship and being able to do that programme in the set length of time of four years. I am concerned about the drop-out rate as well. Perhaps that is a figure we can look at another day. We do not want people dropping out of apprenticeships. The State has saved €55 million, mostly from apprenticeship allowances, but has reinvested only €37 million in the programme. Apprentices have not been treated with the same consideration and importance as other third level students. The…

On behalf of Sinn Féin, I wish the outgoing leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Kelly, well following his announcement last night that he has resigned his role. I extend my best regards to him and his family. I welcome Ms Linda Ervine, who will be in the Seanad today to speak on Seachtain na Gaeilge. We extend her a fáilte mór from this House and acknowledge the great work she has done on the Irish language in east Belfast. Her work is well known throughout the Thirty-two Counties and beyond. I wish to record once a…

We need to be updated on those discussions. There has to be an immediate response, or one that is as immediate as possible. There are growing conversations in many EU countries about ending imports of Russian oil and gas into the future. Has the Government considered what the State can do to secure its energy supply if this comes to pass? We were told all the time that the Corrib gas project would secure our energy supply. That has not been the case, although a proportion is supplied from the Corrib field. We must …

This morning the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, launched a report on the construction costs of rebuilding the homes affected by pyrite and mica. I thank it for its work and acknowledge that it did so free of charge as a public service. I welcome the scrapping of the nonsense of the sliding scale, but there are many issues of concern outside the terms of reference. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Tánaiste will know about the cost of foundations in many places. We also n…

The Trans-European Transport Network, TEN-T, policy is a gateway that gives specific rail and road transport infrastructure, routes, ports and airports exclusive access to the Connecting Europe Facility, CEF, fund. It also represents the individual member states' priority rail and road transport corridors, ports and airports. The latest 2021 CEF transport call under the 2013 TEN-T map is for proposals to make €7 billion available to support infrastructure projects across the EU. Why is the west and the Atlantic eco…

TEN-T funding.

What about the western rail corridor?

As I speak today I am mindful that it is Ash Wednesday, a day of repentance when Christians confess their sins and profess their devotion to God. I do not want to make this religious but I am acutely aware of the suffering that the families of the victims of those who have been buried have endured over the decades and that they still endure. The Minister acknowledged that and he understands it and we need to put that to an end as quickly as possible, while also recognising the suffering of the babies who were negle…

The Mayo University Hospital waiting list increased by 162% from July 2015 to July 2021. It takes 712 days for people to get general surgery there. There are severe regional imbalances to be addressed. I have listened to what the Minister has said and one of those was about delivering care close to home. I ask the Minister to talk to the workers and managers who have been appointed to make the decisions because they are closing down every local service they possibly can, including Belmullet Community Hospital. We n…