Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending so late in the evening. On the alternative pathway without the requirements for points that was offered to leaving certificate students last September, will he give us an outline of how that fared? I think 23 courses were launched. How many students benefited from it? If the Minister has any information on the types of courses, he might give us a brief outline of that.

The Minister announced a mental health budget of about €5 million in Christmas week, broken down between the various universities and TUs. If I recall, UCC got €350,000 or something to that effect, while other colleges got similar sums. Does he have any trail of what specifically that money is being spent on? I acknowledge it is early days, but is it going to be primarily on personnel, GPs, nurses or counsellors, or is it going to be based more on capital projects or something else?

My next question will be contentious but I feel as though I have to raise it. It relates to student accommodation. There was a story in the Irish Examiner over a week ago about the possible purchase of student accommodation in Cork city to be used for an alternative purpose, namely, the possible housing of IPAS applicants or Ukrainians. As I said, it is quite contentious at the moment. There was an issue just a couple of days ago in Cork where people were protesting and threatening to burn down buildings on the basis of rumour, hearsay, reports and so on. While there has not been any of that in this case for the student accommodation, my concern is that it was purpose built for students and is being used for students. We have all spoken at the committee about the lack of student accommodation and the Minister in his opening statement outlined that he is working to increase that capacity. If I am being truthful and fair, this is probably a question I should be asking the Minister for integration rather than the Minister, Deputy Harris, but I am interested in his perspective as Minister for higher education. If wants to set aside that isolated case, that is fine. What is his position on accommodation that was built for specifically student purposes? In my opinion, it should be maintained, where there is demand at the very least, for that specific purpose.