Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think we have a problem and I am not sure the Minister recognises it. I ask him to re-examine this matter on the basis of the correspondence I am getting from students and parents. I have been contacted by a mother in Ballybunion who has one student in first year instrument engineering and another in third year biomedical engineering. Both are paying full fees of €6,000, and €12,000 for accommodation. One of them is getting one afternoon a week on a Tuesday as in-person face-to-face learning at Munster Technological University, MTU, on its Cork campus and initial professional development for four hours on a Monday and five hours on a Thursday. That is not consistent with what the Minister is telling me, and I have a great deal of similar correspondence. We really need to look at it. As the Minister said, an opportunity is coming in a couple of weeks, later in October. We need to use that opportunity to correct what is wrong. Absolutely, safety is paramount, but we have to ask institutions to do more. Some of them need to do more to be able to accommodate students like this.

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