Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his presentation. I will focus on two issues, namely, student accommodation and apprenticeships. I believe they are linked. In terms of student accommodation, every year every Deputy and Senator hears distressing stories from people throughout the country who cannot source accommodation. There are no quick fixes or solutions to this. I can see that. I wonder, with regard to the collaboration between technological universities and ETBs which has worked very well, whether it possible to have more of a roll-out and collaboration whereby we could have hubs in our regional towns so that people do not have to go to cities. This would help to achieve regional balance. I am thinking of my constituency of Laois-Offaly where things have worked quite well with the technological university in Athlone and the ETB. There is evidence of good collaboration and results, which are important. Could we do more of this? We will not solve the accommodation shortage overnight but we need to provide other solutions for people. This would have economic benefits. We could have hubs in towns where people could be accredited with a TU qualification and yet not be under pressure to source accommodation 30 or 40 miles away. Could this be a solution?

With regard to the roll-out of accommodation and building accommodation, we can speak all we want but we need to have more apprenticeships. We need more apprentices taking up construction or we will not see delivery. With the best will in the world we can throw millions of euro at it but we need apprentices and people to build this student accommodation and these units. ETB Ireland highlighted this issue a number of years ago. I acknowledge the great work the Minister has done on apprenticeships. He certainly has ramped it up. With regard to construction, how are we faring in terms of bringing in numbers? It was said at the committee when we met apprentices there was an issue with the wet trades. There were gaps and people were reluctant to go into the wet trades. How do we ramp this up? Is there any use in looking at other education models? I am thinking of the German model which has delivered. For decades it has been doing amazing work on apprenticeships. Do we take anything from this model? Do we use any of the ideas from this model in terms of ramping up construction? This is to be constructive.

The student accommodation we have is scarce. Is it possible to put in place student accommodation officers to assist families, particularly families of first-year students? People really are under a lot of strain trying to source accommodation. They do not know where to look. Students encounter difficulties and it adds to the stress of beginning college. We could do something pragmatic and sensible, such as the roll-out of a pilot scheme whereby student accommodation officers are put in the main colleges to assist students.