Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Of course I do, and it is very valuable and useful. The students hear of the millions and millions of euro and then they are really struggling and do not have enough for their heating or for their accommodation and for other basic things. We just need to be aware of that when we are announcing an additional €8 million in funding when we do not really see an additional €8 million. The students are finding they are cut to half of what they got last year. Maybe one of the reasons more and more students this year must access the student assistance fund is the difficulties they are having around that.

I wish to raise another issue with the Minister of State, on which he might follow up. The committee had Dyspraxia Ireland in last week. It was pleading for laptops. Have all of the laptops that were distributed through the higher education institutions all been used? Is there a way we could send out a note to the HEIs to ask if any of the laptops that have not been used could be taken back and redistributed to Dyspraxia Ireland? It explained to us that if a person has dyspraxia, having a laptop is absolutely vital to ensuring he or she can participate fully in education, yet many of them do not have access to laptops.