Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

This is very straightforward. This has been running for a week and half and we still do not know whether students - and in some cases their parents - will be paying €2,000 or €3,000. If we had the support of this Chamber and followed through on Sinn Féin's motion, students would be paying €1,500 next year. That is the clarity we need. How we got here, on some level, does not matter. I accept the Minister probably does not appreciate the sideswipes from his partners in government and I bet he can quite easily make the argument that they did not put in place the reductions in the long term.

I was in a house yesterday where the family was 100% sure they would be paying a maximum of €2,000. They have one more kid to go through college. It is a family I have called to many times and with which I have had a huge number of interactions. This, however, was the first time I had a real political discussion with the family where it got hot and heavy. As they see it, they pay for everything and get nothing. That is how an awful lot of people feel at this point in time.

We know the issues students face, one being the issue of accommodation. Students' rents will not be improved by the rent pressure zone legislation proposed by this Government.

There is a question as to whether they will be lucky enough even to get accommodation because we know how rare it is. There are many parents who have decided where their children can and cannot go to college. We know that many students are under huge pressure in relation to the working hours they have to put in to try to make ends meet.

We need an answer in this regard. I was going to say that we have heard much about the various types of pathways there are. I have said before that it is brilliant that we have PLCs and that the situation regarding apprenticeships is brilliant. However, Deputy David Cullinane and I had a debate with the Minister about the huge hole relating to ETBs at this time. Adult educators are under pressure and local training initiatives are at risk of being cut. There is a severe worry that while the Minister says no apprenticeships will be cancelled, they are going to be postponed, which will particularly impact trades. We need clarity around all of this. First and foremost, it is not okay that students will be paying more than €2,000 next year.

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