Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for being here. It was a long night for him last night. I appreciate he is having a couple of busy days with us. I have a few questions. Coming back to the student fees discussion, in the options paper the Minister will submit, will he consider including that as an option to try to address that issue? People have referred to the students we met today and it is certainly something they are looking for. I also welcome the Minister's focus on student accommodation and particularly standardised design. I look forward to seeing those through to the end of the year.

I also welcome the work the Minister has done to date in improving the apprenticeships options and that more will be coming through in the future, particularly in the area of healthcare, where we know there are some deficits in career choices for people. How can we simplify access to apprenticeships? Plenty of young people have pointed out to me that most of the onus is on them. They have to seek the employer and do an awful lot of legwork. Not every young person is up to that challenge, particularly if they do not know what they want to do, which is one of the challenges. As a former lecturer myself, I have come across “I do not know what I want to do. I fill out my CAO form and just pick the five things that I think I am vaguely interested in." College then may not be a good fit for them but there would have been other paths that could have led to the same ultimate end in qualification but would have suited them better. Thus, there is a potential route they may have missed out on.

Will the funding for ETBs be addressed in these Estimates?

Many people here have raised the SUSI grant. My view is that the funding should follow the student. Has the Minister considered extending the eligibility of the SUSI grant to institutions that are not currently eligible? I am thinking particularly about Griffith and Dublin Business School. There are courses there that are QQI-approved and so on but there is not a SUSI grant for them, so students cannot access them.

I am thinking a little bit more long term because as the Aungier Street campus closes down and moves over to Grangegorman, there will not be a college in what is an area close to people who would not traditionally have gone to college. It has always been the strategy of successive Governments to locate campuses to make it easier for people to go to college. I also taught in Blanchardstown. That was critical. People just would not have travelled into town. If it was not on their doorstep, they would not have done it. I feel the same challenge will arise here. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that? It is maybe not an issue today but going forward, particularly, as I said, when Aungier Street closes down and it moves across to Grangegorman.