Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise two arguably differing topics, if the House will indulge me. First, I welcome the announcement by the Minister, Deputy Harris, to review postgraduate supports. This is incredibly important and something I have been campaigning on for a very long time. Only in the past few weeks, I met with the postgraduate workers union, which is doing very important work on representation for postgraduate students as workers. A conversation we need to start having concerns where postgraduate students fall because they are falling into a halfway house between being students yet they are also working, and they are getting neither the benefits nor representation in either of those areas. I support the calls of the postgraduate workers union and believe it has some very interesting and radical ideas about how we can address postgraduates and their framing within the system.

I will not labour the point too much. For context, in the past ten years, postgraduate supports have increased by approximately 3% from some €18,000 to €18,500 yet rents have gone up by 70%. It is not a sustainable model. We pride ourselves on being a land of saints and scholars but unless someone is one of the lucky few who can access scholarship funding or supports, it is not an option to undertake further study. As I said, I welcome the Minister's commitment to reviewing this and I look forward to working with him on it, but if we are being realistic about it, there has been a 3% increase for postgraduate supports in the last ten years and a 70% increase in rents. That is the state of play with regard to postgraduate supports.

The other issue concerns the planning applications to be lodged for two transport projects in Dublin 11 and Dublin 9, one being the railway order for the ever-promised metro project and the other the Ballymun-Finglas to city centre core bus corridor. It is important to note that these current planning consultations are not like the previous non-statutory ones. They are the actual statutory planning processes and the final decision will impact the final constructed design. I know people who have said “Sure we are back at it again and we are being asked for our thoughts yet again on this bus corridor”. I emphasise that this consultation is the one that is going to impact on the final design. It is all around walking, cycling, the provision of enhanced bus measures and so on. I highlight that the deadline for submissions is 15 November 2022, which is coming up soon, and that this is the actual statutory consultation which will have an impact on the final layout and what the final construction design will be.