Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, am delighted for the Minister of State. I wish him well in his portfolio. I, too, am astounded that the Minister, Deputy Harris, could not have waited until the end of the debate. Has he gone out to look into the black hole that is the children's hospital site? Some legacy he has in that regard. His absence is totally insulting to Deputies, smaller parties and groups who have waited in the queue. He does not even believe we were worth listening to. That has been his raison d'être.

I want to talk about three issues, the first of which concerns university status for the south east. This is badly needed. The region is the poor relation. The late Donogh O'Malley, a party colleague of the Minister of State's father and others, had great vision and inspiration regarding free education. My God, look at it now. Look at the stresses. Hundreds of students and their parents have been on to me about having paid anything between €4,000 and €9,000 for college accommodation and now cannot get it back. The Government has a majority. It has a majority on the Business Committee also, as the Ceann Comhairle will know. It should introduce legislation to address this matter. It will find that nobody will oppose it. Let the providers take 30% of the fees, or 40% at most, and give back 70% or 60% to the hard-pressed families. The Government tells us we are experiencing a pandemic and it legislated to close down everything. Why are the hard-working families being victimised, made perish and thrown to the wolves?

I support the staff in SUSI because they have a hard job to do. They did their best. I have a very good working relationship with them. My office is very busy. Geraldine in my office is on to the staff daily.

The student nurses have been betrayed. They left their colleges and came home to work. They put themselves on the front line and they were told they would be paid. The Government Members have stood up here and elsewhere to applaud them but they refuse to pay them. It is abject, disgraceful behaviour, and it is truly a reversal of the Government's promises. Promises are meant to be broken, the Government will probably tell us, but the student nurses need to be paid. They are at the front line working harder than many in the huge monstrosity that is the HSE. The are willing to be at the front line. They are losing the part-time work they had because they are not available to do it. They have been badly mistreated. The Minister of State has children himself and he will have college students shortly enough. I have a student in college this year. It is a very trying time. Some students have only one lecture. A student I encountered who wanted to travel to college had only five or six hours of tuition but they were spread over five days, meaning they had to travel on each of five days. The universities and colleges need to get their act together and not have students in college for perhaps ten hours over five days. It is unfair on the families and the students. There is a lot to be sorted out in the third level sector. I wish the Minister of State well with it.

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