Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome and I thank his officials for joining us. We have heard from many students that the cost-of-living crisis is impacting on them. I agree with the level of funding the Minister is proposing and he has support across Government but there are some areas where we need to accelerate things. For those struggling around SUSI grants, the expansion is welcome. Will the Minister comment on areas that are essential to get right immediately? We have a global cost-of-living crisis.

We have had people in to us saying we could have accelerated programmes around apprenticeships to develop skills quickly and bring a workforce on in areas, particularly around retrofitting and building, which is what we really need. Those things will get us out of the global crisis.

The previous witnesses spoke about the challenges they face around the infrastructure and funding they require to ensure they can train people. Does the Minister have any comments to make around funding that could be made available to technical universities to bring them up to a place where they have all the necessary resources, physical and otherwise? I would be grateful for that.