Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. It is simply that people were very much expecting there was going to be a permanent reduction. I was taken by surprise on budget day when there was not. The other thing that took me by surprise that day was there was no mention of student accommodation in either of the Ministers' Budget Statements. I am acutely aware the Minister of State did not write those speeches, so I do not take issue with that.

I will come back to student accommodation, but I wish to touch on apprentices because the Minister of State has mentioned them a number of times during the course of this meeting. We are obviously aware there are major backlogs as craft apprentices wait for off-the-job training. Covid was an issue and we understand that, but at this stage people would see that as an excuse because we are nearly in 2024 and we still seem to be heading in the wrong direction. For example, in August 2022 we had 5,252 apprentices who had been waiting more than six months for their off-the-job training. By August of this year the number had increased and it did so also in September. I do not have the figures for October and November yet, but has the Minister of State any idea of whether there will be a further increase with that? I appreciate any assistance that can be given to apprentices as cost-of-living measures are extremely important, but we want to see people moving forward.