Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for this important question. The short answer is that I will. I have already spoken to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, about this. He was planning a meeting with the Union of Students in Ireland, USI. That either has taken place or will take place shortly. The union has a number of proposals that it wants the Minister to consider and he wants to engage with USI on that. I will support him and the union in any way I can in progressing that.

With regard to students having to pay fees up-front, as I said earlier approximately 44% of people who will go to college this year, or almost half, will have either all or part of their student contribution fee paid through the SUSI grant system. Approximately 2,500 more people applied for the SUSI grant this year, a sign of the times. We have made sure that those grants have been processed as quickly as possible. We have doubled the student assistance fund. This fund is accessed through the local access office. If somebody is having a hard time because he or she used to have a part-time job at the weekend but does not have one now, he or she can seek financial assistance. We have provided funding for laptops. Almost 17,000 laptops will be purchased, and I can send the Deputy a breakdown for his area. These are being sent to the universities and will be there in time for the start of the college year.

On the issue of broadband, I will not take up time by repeating the points I made to Deputy Cairns. I believe there is work we can do in terms of looking at the WiFi access students have on campus and seeing if we can extend that off-site. There are some exciting pilot projects that we can run in the course of the year. I will be happy to meet the Deputy with regard to Tipperary and how we can possibly roll that out there.

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