Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to raise a number of matters today. First, I congratulate the Union of Students in Ireland for having got more than 10,000 people out on the streets yesterday in the fight for both free education and access to education and to show students' distaste at the possibility of third-level loans. I know the education committee is due to discuss the Cassells report, but something must be done in the interim. We need to go back to the Minister for Education and consider the bureaucracy in the likes of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI. I get very distressed e-mails from mature students. I have one this morning from a nurse about to quit her third year. It will be a loss to this country to lose nurses due to the bureaucracy in the likes of SUSI, which is set up by the State to provide access to students who need it. SUSI insists every year on treating this nurse as not being a dependant of her mother, with whom she has not lived for years, but she has always looked after herself and lives on her own. It is a real shame that we cannot set up a system whereby we can give those most vulnerable students the access they need. I also have a handwritten letter from a young child, who is quite distressed, in fourth year. It is a shame that the emotional well-being of someone so young is being affected because he is so worried about how he will access third-level education three years from the time at which he is even due to consider it. We should therefore come together and support the likes of the students who were outside the House yesterday seeking reform in the education system.

I also read this morning a very exciting article which I showed to Senator Mark Daly about Deputy Jack Chambers, who has circulated a policy seeking to relax the criminalisation of drug addicts. I hope the other Fianna Fáilers in the room will take some heed of the younger people in the party when the Bill with this aim which Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and I are to introduce comes before the House.