I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am pleased to say Sligo has led the way in the provision of part-time education at what was IT Sligo and is now ATU Sligo. It has a very proud record. Up until now, students have had to pay significant fees to access part-time education. That simply does not make sense when we are trying to help people who are in work to upskill or help people who did not have an opportunity to access higher education at an earlier stage. As a result of the budget, from September, for th…

I remember when Deputy Leddin and I opened that centre together. It has been a key part of the infrastructure. We now have a number of centres of excellence throughout the country. In fact, the question we used to get asked was whether we would have enough capacity in the education system to help people get retrofitting skills. The question now is different. It is now about whether we will be able to create enough demand. We now have more capacity than demand. I will get the individual breakdown for the Deputy, but…

I thank Deputy Andrews for raising this issue on behalf of his constituents in Ringsend and Irishtown. The Government is extraordinarily committed to the delivery of social and affordable houses. That can be seen with the significant increases year on year in both, in addition to housing supply overall. On the specifics around the glass bottle site and some of the suggestions and proposals the Deputy made, I will ask the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to revert to him directly.

That is high praise from the Deputy; I thank him. I am pleased to be a friend of County Kerry. I thank the Deputy for all his time in bringing me around many educational facilities there. I am delighted to say we have now received a proposal from Kerry ETB, through SOLAS, to rejuvenate and regenerate the old Pretty Polly site and turn it into a state-of-the-art further education college, specialising in hospitality and culinary training, which is obviously at the heart of the economy and society of Killarney. I wil…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I know how stressful an issue it can be for the parent of an autistic child. We have put a lot of investment and effort into opening new autism classes throughout the county. On County Laois specifically, where there clearly seems to be a challenge, I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, to look into the matter.

The Deputy has piqued my interest. I thank him for raising this important matter. The issue is ownership of the pier, but people in the community just want to see action. On foot of the Deputy suggesting the need for a fund for local authority-owned piers and harbours, I will ask Ministers Darragh O'Brien and McConalogue, to consider his suggestion and revert to him.

When a Government delivers a budget, it is important that there is a consistency and certainty of approach throughout the year. The Government unveiled a significant package of measures to assist with the cost-of-living crisis in respect of workers, families, children, older people and businesses. We continue to explore how we can help with various interventions but we have no current plans in this specific regard. I point out, however, that this Government has taken several measures to put money back into people's…

The Government and the Minister for children take this issue of any non-compliance with Garda vetting requirements by commissioned services extraordinarily seriously. I referred earlier to this issue raised by the Deputy. Tusla now has an internal compliance unit in place to do exactly as the Deputy suggested concerning examining and stress-testing evidence from providers of special emergency arrangement accommodation in respect of their staff having Garda vetting and adequate qualifications.

It was the internal compliance unit of Tusla that detected this issue. The organisation immediately ceased using the service and reported the matter to An Garda Síochána-----

-----and an investigation is ongoing.

I thank Deputy Clarke very much for raising this important issue. My colleague, the Minister for Justice, is extraordinarily committed to adopting a zero-tolerance approach to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. As recently as last week we saw the establishment of Cuan, the new national agency to co-ordinate these efforts. I thank the people undertaking the work in Esker House. The delivery of more refuge beds is a priority for the Minister for Justice. Specifically regarding Esker House in County Westmeath…

I thank Deputy Shanahan for raising this issue. The PPP bundle 2 is currently at the tender stage. It is awaiting final tender. As soon as this is in, the Government will make a decision shortly thereafter. Regarding the strategic plan, I am in constant contact with Professor Campbell about it. I very much appreciate, support and endorse the contents of the plan. As I think the Deputy knows, from his asking of the question, all individual projects in any plan have to go through the public spending code process. It …

I will certainly take up Deputy Daly's suggestion on the need for emergency accommodation in Kerry with the Minister for housing and will ask him to revert to him directly on the matter. I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, to look into the staffing of the CAMHS team and to respond to Deputy Mythen directly. Deputy O'Dowd asked about the judgment in Belfast. I am aware of his ongoing interest in and work with families and victims' groups here. Obviously, we have only seen the judgment in Belfast in rece…

I thank Deputy Farrell for this important question. As she knows, I recently received Government approval for an overarching policy approach for student accommodation in Ireland. This policy looks at a number of ways to stimulate supply of student accommodation, including standardised design, continued promotion of the rent-a-room scheme and recognition of the Government's commitment to reactivating vacant and derelict properties. I am developing schemes to enable the repurposing of existing on-campus buildings or …

As the Deputy knows, on a number of occasions I have brought to Cabinet short-term policy approaches that we could take to get student accommodation activated, particularly where they had planning permission. More recently, I did bring that longer term policy approach. That had a number of elements, including the vacancy element. There is not much of a mystery here. For the first time in the history of this State we want to provide taxpayers' funds to technological universities to help them build student accommodat…

I am a little bit perplexed about the line of inquiry but we want to come at this from every possible angle. We know there are vacant properties in the regions and in many towns where HEIs are based. The Deputy is correct when she says it is not just for technological universities but for any universities, although I think it will be of particular benefit to our technological universities. I already know of two universities that have been linking with my Department. They believe they have identified vacant building…

I do not believe these are in that space. We need to look at every way of coming at this. I know the Deputy agrees on this. We want to build purpose-built student accommodation, whether in DCU or Maynooth, but we know that it takes time to get from an idea through design, planning and construction. There could be opportunities in the meantime to look at vacant stock. I want to cast the net wide and invite our universities to bring forward their proposals by 15 March.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I have been working closely with the Minister for housing, Deputy O'Brien, on this matter. I thank him and his Department and officials for their continued support and engagement. We both agree the actions of these providers is unacceptable. While a 51-week lease may suit some third level students - perhaps those who require to be in a university for a longer period than the traditional college year - it is not desirable or affordable for the majority of students and we in…

I am not satisfied about the 51-week contract situation. I intend to reach out to the local authorities this week to ask them to carry out an urgent assessment and I intend to work with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, on legislative change in the area. This highlights the need to be less reliant on the private market and to build more college-owned student accommodation. It is the reason we are activating the building of student accommodation in DCU and Maynooth, the reason we are trying to work with UCD and Trinity …

It is the Deputy's job and duty to keep a watchful eye on this and she will do that well but by any objective measure we have seen an increase in college-owned student accommodation and in general student accommodation this college year compared to last year. We have seen more measures to help students with the cost of rent this year than last year and an increase in the student grant this year compared to last year. We saw a reduction in the college fees this year and also last year. We are making tangible efforts…