Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, who is most welcome here at this committee meeting, as are the guests in the Public Gallery. It is always interesting when there are more people in the Public Gallery than there are members of the committee. It usually means there is something topical being discussed.

I like the idea of a one-stop-shop for information and of social media supplementing the one-stop-shop. When there is a definitive point of information, social media can then be used to break it down into smaller chunks. A person talking about his or her own personal statement could be used on social media, whereas that is not something one would want on the website. The website needs to be definitive; it needs to roadmap what the options are, irrespective if a student is travelling South to North or North to South. To my mind, a website is the way to do that.

It must be mentioned that when we talk about the island of Ireland, this level of information exists in other areas. If a person wishes to invest on this island, he or she will easily find information as to how to do that. Therefore, this should not be something revolutionary or that stops people in their tracks. This is about the provision of information of good quality and a high standard. I do not like it when I read that students feel like they are being thrown in the deep end, whether it is applying to go North or to go South. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up somewhat when I read about the communication deficits because there is no justifiable reason for that any more and nor is there any justifiable reason for a lack of awareness. The information is available but it just needs to be put in a coherent place where everybody can find it.

I fully agree that students need to be key stakeholders. Sometimes, the importance of that sense of belonging - somewhere a person is committing to spend the next three or four years of his or her life or possibly longer - is underestimated. That point is important.

An apprenticeship fair was held recently at Simmonscourt in the RDS. It had every possible type of apprenticeship you could imagine and from butchers to stonemasons, everybody was there. It was the same with welding. They were all there and were very well represented. Something like that could be a catalyst as an annual event with one in the South and one in the North to showcase the options that are there if somebody wanted to speak in more detail about it.

I understand the career guidance pressures and the pressures in that area as well. However, we need to move to being solution focused as opposed to stating what the problems are. A couple of different things need to happen. One is a short-term thing and can happen quite quickly, namely, the provision of an information website. Something that should take a little bit longer and needs to be dealt with in a different arena is a citizens' assembly on the future of education. Issues like this should have a very important role to play in that citizens' assembly as well. It is a commitment in the programme for Government. There has not been any definitive information given but it is something that should be included in it that will deliver the long-term changes we need to see. In the short term, we certainly should not be looking any more at the reasons this is not a viable alternative for students.

Mr. Irfan mentioned something that we do not think about enough when we talk about student mobility, which is the issue around visa access. Could he go into that a little bit more?