Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a wake-up call for us. That has to be flashing on all of our radars and that is why I am excited about things we have coming, such as microcredentials. Our platform launches on 12 July, looking at how to provide access in bite-size pieces, for the want of a more technical phrase. There is a large body of work to do. Jumping to the Senator's point on the National Training Fund, NTF, that is where that comes in. Every employer in Ireland or almost every employer has been paying into this, effectively paying a tax or levy to the Government to prepare for this challenge and to make sure we can upskill and reskill people. The good news is that there is a load of money sitting in an account.

It is in surplus and will hit a surplus of €1.5 billion by the end of the year. There is an onus and responsibility on the Government and the Oireachtas to come up with a plan for that. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, and I have been tasked by the Taoiseach to do just that. Our teams have been working very hard. We will try to bring forward ideas in advance of the budget as to how we can help citizens to access lifelong learning. It was very clear in the OECD skills review that there is no reluctance on the part of Irish people to access it. Far from it; they want to access it. How do we make that work, however? People are time poor. How do we support people? How do we incentivise employers? Let us be honest; there is a divide here. We are grateful for what the big multinationals do, but they may be in a position to provide their employees with access the small and medium enterprises, perhaps in the Senator's part of the world, may not be. That conversation is going on. I am very pleased the Senator raised the issue of lifelong learning.

I have special praise for the president and team at the University of Galway, who have shown real leadership on the student accommodation issue. Many people come to the Government with problems and define the problems. We are great at defining problems at great length but sometimes we need to move to solutions. The University of Galway team are powering ahead, for which I thank them, with an innovative model of partnering with the private sector to get stuff done. I thank them for that. I also acknowledge that they and Atlantic Technological University are now working together to explore options around student accommodation. Again, that is the sort of bigger, regional thinking we need.

The Senator is right that transport is not my direct area but it is an area on which I hear from students. I acknowledge the work the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has done around reducing the cost of public transport for all people, especially young people. Obviously, that only comes into play if they can access public transport, which is the second piece I know the Minister and the Government are working on. I note from the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan that we saw the first year of implementation of Connecting Ireland last year. We saw 38 new and enhanced services launched. My understanding is 67 new and enhanced services are due to be launched this year. There are definitely possibilities and opportunities in that regard for college routes, if I can call them that, to benefit. The role of my Department is to support the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in his effort to continue to expand that, and to encourage universities and colleges to engage with local authorities and local transport providers in putting forward the applications for those new and enhanced routes.