Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a number of issues today. My colleague, Senator Hoey, has the University College Cork, UCC, students' union in today to talk about student accommodation. Student accommodation is something we have all heard about and dealt with over the last number of years and particularly the last number of months. The UCC students' union will tell us that students are missing classes because of the long commute they have to do to get to college. It is an issue all of us in this House have raised on various occasions and I encourage Members to come along today to talk to the UCC students' union, which has done a detailed report, including on the hunger faced by some students as they commute long distances to class. I call on the Leader to arrange for the Minister for higher education to come to the House to discuss student accommodation and the crisis for many students and their families.

The second issue I wish to mention today, and I am not sure whether it has been raised before, is sudden and unexplained death in epilepsy. That is a serious issue for many people. It causes 33 deaths per year. I listened to the discussion on "Morning Ireland" this morning around that particular issue. It is an issue that needs awareness-raising. We have 45,000 people in this country with epilepsy. It is an issue I have raised in this House before. I deal with families across Kildare South who are dealing with this. It is something we need to discuss and make everybody aware of. I encourage everybody to spread the message on their on their social media. I have been contacted by Epilepsy Ireland to spread the message today. It is important that we all do that.