Laura Harmon (Labour)

I welcome everybody back. I also wish Bridget Doody the best and thank her for her service here. We will certainly miss her. I wish the same to Martin Groves. I wish Martin Hughes the best in his role.

I raise the issue of student fees. We are back from the summer recess and we hear there will be a €500 increase in the student contribution fee. It is being portrayed as a decrease but an increase is an increase. An increase on last year is being proposed in the budget. The House should have clarity from the Minister for further and higher education on this given our debate prior to the summer when Fine Gael Senators agreed with most of us in opposition that this should not happen and it needed to be stopped. We need an update on the rationale and proposals around that.

On housing and homelessness, I attended the start of Simon Week in Cork yesterday. I wish the Simon Communities of Ireland well with their week. I was particularly struck by a number of their key asks. One statistic that stood out was the average life expectancy of a reasonably healthy person in Ireland is 82 years but if people are in long-term homelessness, they can only expect to live into their 40s. It is unlikely they would reach 50. That is a very staggering statistic given that we have over 15,000 children homeless in Ireland. One of the Simon Communities' key asks is that we address the issue of single adult homelessness. Some 65% of all adults who are homeless are single and account for 44% of those who are homeless in this country. We urgently need to address that and have appropriate accommodation in place too.