Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I first thank Sinn Féin for putting this motion before us. It is very important that what happened last year - and each and every one of us remembers what happened last September - does not happen this year. The colleges were supposed to open and it was bad foresight by the Government, though I am not blaming any one Minister, that one week after the colleges were supposed to open, it was decided they were not opening at all. Many parents from all around the country had paid for their children's accommodation and the students themselves had helped to pay the costs as well. It was frightening to think, as Deputy Naughten mentioned, that the University of Limerick would not give back the fees to many of its students. That was wrong. It was wrong also of private landlords to hold on to the money when students were not using the accommodation. I sympathise with landlords who were themselves in financial difficulty with the banks and so forth but those who were not should have given the students back their money, as the students were not using the accommodation.

It affected students in rural areas more than those in cities. Students in County Kerry must travel to Tralee or to Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin. It is a very worrying time for parents who seek to have accommodation in place for their children, to have a safe and proper place for them as for many students, it is their first time away from home. It is a very trying time for parents and students struggling to get going.

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