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

At 11.11 a.m. next Thursday, students from all over this State will walk out of their lectures. They have a list of well-justified demands, including adequate funding for the sector to address a legacy of chronic underfunding, reform of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, and a living wage including decent pay for PhD researchers who are denied worker status. Three of their demands centre around the crisis in student accommodation, yet this year's budget is the third consecutive budget from the Government with no allocation for student accommodation. Students have had to defer their courses, sleep in cars and travel long distances. Will the Government look again at student accommodation and stop avoiding the inevitability of investing in such accommodation? Will it listen to these students?

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