Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)

I genuinely hope that today is the day we see a permanent and lasting ceasefire, an end to the genocide, and a return of all the hostages to their families.

Closer to home, the buzzword at the moment is "living experience". I would like to speak on behalf of my two children. We have all gone through a journey of travelling from Drogheda in County Louth to UCD for the last four years. One is continuing for the next year. It is an impossibility to commute from Drogheda, the largest town in Ireland – a de facto city – to get to UCD for a 9 o'clock lecture. There are three private coaches that say they will get people there on time, but it is an impossibility. You are either 45 minutes late for your first lecture at 9 o'clock in the morning or you are forced to try to live in Dublin. We know the pressure that is on everybody trying to live in Dublin. I have done it for four years with my two children. It is an impossibility. They are being forced to sleep on couches or to drive, which again is an impossibility for most youngsters at the moment, because of the cost of the travel or the cost of insurance. We must look at improving bus services, in particular for large commuter towns. We are talking about the largest university and the largest town, yet you simply cannot get to a lecture on time. I would like to have a debate in the House with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, not only on the position in Drogheda, County Louth, and in Dundalk, but also right across the country, to make university much more accessible to everybody.