James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I totally agree. I will raise some of the progress we have made in recent years and which is continuing again this year, from this September. On the cost of education, the threshold is one part of it, and an important one. The SUSI grant system is one part also. There are other factors such as student accommodation, which I am working on. I hope to publish a strategy on student accommodation this summer. This will address student accommodation in a consistent way with a uniform template, or a set of templates, available for student accommodation builds. That has not been there in the past or it has been somewhat ad hoc. It is something I have asked the Department to focus on and produce that template, which will then assist with further student accommodation being made available.

The Deputy referred to the cost of transport and travel for students who are commuting, often because student accommodation may not be available to them. On those costs, we have the student Leap card and fare discounts have continued this year. They were part of the budget negotiations by me last year in my previous role. That is very important for students.

There are other issues such as materials, the cost of laptops, books and so on. There are other types of support, whether it is support through fee subsidies, maintenance grants, support for accommodation or the provision of those services directly. It is multifaceted but I am certainly very aware of those challenges.

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