Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. It was really interesting to listen to each of them. Having met with student union representatives over the past number of months, accommodation is obviously the key issue. I will say thank you in particular to TU Dublin and to Dr. Lillis. My husband graduated with a PhD last October at a lovely ceremony. There were people from all over the place who were graduating from lots of different courses. The ceremony at Tallaght was lovely. I know that people had a fantastic day and, apparently, many such days before and after he graduated.

My concern is when only 0.4% are accommodated on campuses that campus life is really missed out. It is also a choice in what course a student can decide to take. I have three questions. The witnesses talked about how, when accommodation is built, there were thoughts about dual-use accommodation for enterprise, but I was not sure exactly what that was. The second thing is whether it would be possible for students to stay in their accommodation for 12 months of the year? The reason I ask that is when students come from elsewhere, around the country or abroad, and stay in that accommodation, whenever it is built, they will have jobs and social lives around the campus. I have heard very clearly from the witnesses that they want that campus life, which is so important to students. The learning is very important but we also like having fun - we are humans. Will that be facilitated? My last question is: how are you at the moment? It is such a struggle to keep students in third level because of the cost, the accommodation and the commuting time. How are the institutions able to support them to stay there to enhance campus life and learning, when they have such long days? They may have to have a job, commute and things like that.