Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

One of the challenges of being so far down in the running order is that a great number of the questions I was going to ask have already been asked. There is a lot of optimism and good feeling on the committee this morning and I share that. The Minister and the Minister of State have announced many good things. I welcome the mental health aspect of their announcements in particular. That is going to be so important. Other Deputies and Senators, and the Minister, have referred to the fact that so much time has been spent by leaving certificate cohorts in their own rooms. I worry about those introverted students and I am glad that we are beginning to think about structuring their participation back into what can be an upheaval and quite a transition for any school leaver in normal times, when moving from a secondary school environment into a college or university environment. That can be quite difficult.

I welcome the mitigating against educational disadvantage fund, which is also important. I was delighted to hear the Minister ruling out student loans. We have a challenge in how we fund our third level sector but I am glad to hear that student loans do not form a part of that solution in the Minister's mind. I agree with him on that.

In-person education and the drive to get back into the classroom or the lecture hall are important. I know this from my own teaching experience but a number of college lecturers have also told me that they just cannot read a room online. They cannot single people out or spot those students who may need a hand on the shoulder or a little bit of additional time. They cannot even get a sense of whether the room is on board and engaged in the same way on Zoom. We all know this from Zoom activities.

I was interested to hear the Minister refer to the borrowing framework for technological universities because that is one of the central concerns and worries for people involved in the technological university model. I do not expect him to answer now as to whether that work is ongoing but he can be sure that members of the committee would love to know more about that.

The Minister of State has dealt with some of the questions I was going to pose about apprenticeships. We need to be planning not just how we upskill our apprentices but how we catch up. This is mission-critical to solving the housing crisis because we need to make sure we have the skills in place as well as the funding and the political will, which we absolutely have, to solve the housing crisis. We also need the people with those skills. We are long on optimism today and maybe a little short on detail. That is understandable because of the rate of change in the transmission of this virus but there has also been a positive rate of change in the roll-out of the vaccine. That makes it difficult for us to define exactly where we are going to be in four or six weeks. Are we going to see clear, specific advice in time for reopening? I make specific reference to WIT. Last year, its president, Professor Willie Donnelly, went out on a limb, and was subsequently shown to be correct in doing so, by asking students not to return to campus. It was a very difficult decision and he left himself exposed to criticism by making what ultimately turned out to be the correct decision. Are we going to get that specific information out to people in a timely way?

I read something fascinating recently about the impact the Spanish flu had on the built environment of the 1920s and I think ventilation will be this century's response to this pandemic. Solving the ventilation issue will do much more than solve Covid. It will have a lot of positive knock-on benefits, not just on education but across our built environment. That would not be money poorly spent.

My final question relates to international students. I have touched on the challenges in funding third level and international students form a big part of the current funding model. Does the Minister have any further detail on the numbers expected this year or modelling on the funding implications? Do we have any specific requirements for incoming international students, such as vaccination, digital passports, etc.? I ask the Minister to comment on that.