Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Deputy to provide me with the details of his constituent who is sleeping in a tent in college because I would be interested to pursue that with the university. There should be no reason we cannot provide accommodation. We have the rent-a-room scheme with 2,500 beds throughout the country available for students to rent. I am not suggesting it is perfect and am certainly not suggesting it is easy, but people can do much better. We can do much better for students than the scenario the Deputy outlined there.

I take the valid point he made about the late leaving cert results and the late CAO offers in recent years have added to the sense of pressure. The Deputy will acknowledge that this year the leaving cert results were back to August, thank God, and the CAO offers were earlier than in previous years.

I will take up the issue he made about the availability of driving tests. I am sure that is placing enormous pressure on people. I will talk to the Minister for Transport on that.

The Deputy spoke about many people travelling by bus. He will know that in the last budget we extended the 50% price reduction on the young adult Leap card to ensure that people in third level education could benefit. I would like to see that maintained in the budget and built upon. However, this is all about building more student accommodation and I am fully committed to doing that.

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